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| UXITEI) STATES OF AMERICA. & 



IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF 



GREEKS AND ROMANS. 



BY 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 




LONDON : 

EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 

1853. 



X 



LONDON : 
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRJAR3. 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

TO 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

Feiends as we are, have long been, and ever shall 
be, I doubt whether I should have prefaced these pages 
with your name were it not to register my judgement 
that, in breaking up and cultivating the unreclaimed 
wastes of Humanity, no labours have been so strenuous, 
so continuous, or half so successful, as yours. "While 
the world admires in you an unlimited knowledge of 
mankind, deep thought, vivid imagination, and bursts of 
eloquence from unclouded highths, no less am I delighted 
when I see you at the schoolroom you have liberated 
from cruelty, and at the cottage you have purified from 
disease. 



CONTENTS. 



GREEKS. 

Page 

ACHILLES AND HELENA . . . . . . . . 1 

MSOF AND RHODOPE 7 

SOLON AND PISISTRATUS 33 

ANACREON AND POLYCRATES 43 

XERXES AND ARTABANUS .55 

PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES 64 

DIOGENES AND PLATO . . . 73 

• XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER 131 

ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON 141 

DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES 150 

JSSCHTNES AND PHOCION 172 

ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON 184 

ARISTOTELES AND CALISTHENES 199 

EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA 219 

LUCIAN AND TLMOTHEUS - . . 280 

ROMANS. 

MARCELLUS AND HANNIBAL . . . . _' . . . . 337 

P. SCIPIO iEMLLlANUS, POLYBIUS, PAN^TIUS .... 342 

METELLUS AND MARIUS 377 



CONTENTS. 



ROMANS (continued). 

Page 

LUCULLUS AND C^SAR 383 

MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO . . . . . 403 

TIBULLUS AND MESSALA 446 

TIBERIUS AND VIPSANIA 461 

EPICTETUS AND SENECA 406 

REFLECTIONS ON THE CONVERSATION OF THE CICEROS . . . 472 



INDEX 479 



IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF 
GREEKS AND ROMANS. 



ACHILLES AND HELENA. 



HELENA. 

Wheee am I? Desert me not, ye blessed from above ! ye 
twain who brought me hither ! 

Was it a dream ? 

Stranger ! thou seemest thoughtful ; couldst thou answer 
me? Why so silent? I beseech and implore thee, speak. 

ACHILLES. 

Neither thy feet nor the feet of mules have borne thee where 
thou standest. Whether in the hour of departing sleep, or at 
what hour of the morning, I know not, Helena, but Aphro- 
dite and Thetis, inclining to my prayer, have, as thou art 
conscious, led thee into these solitudes. To me also have 
they shown the way ; that I might behold the pride of Sparta, 
the marvel of the earth, and . . how my heart swells and 
agonises at the thought ! . . the cause of innumerable woes to 
Hellas. 

HELENA. 

Stranger ! thou art indeed one whom the goddesses or gods 
might lead, and glory in ; such is thy stature, thy voice, and 
thy demeanour • but who, if earthly, art thou ? 



4 ACHILLES AND HELENA. 

ACHILLES. 

Before thee, Helena, stands Achilles, son of Peleus. 
Tremble not, turn not pale, bend not thy knees, Helena ! 

HELENA. 

Spare me, thou goddess-born ! thou cherished and only son 
of silver-footed Thetis ! Chryseis and Briseis ought to soften 
and content thy heart. Lead not me also into captivity. 
Woes too surely have I brought down on Hellas : but woes 
have been mine alike, and will for ever be. 

ACHILLES. 

Daughter of Zeus ! what word hast thou spoken ! Chryseis, 
child of the aged priest who performs in this land due sacrifices 
to Apollo, fell to the lot of another ; an insolent and unworthy 
man, who hath already brought more sorrows upon our people 
than thou hast ; so that dogs and vultures prey on the brave 
who sank without a wound. Briseis is indeed mine ; the lovely 
and dutiful Briseis. He, unjust and contumelious, proud at 
once and base, would tear her from me. But, gods above ! in 
what region has the wolf with impunity dared to seize upon 
the kid which the lion hath taken ? 

Talk not of being led into servitude. Could mortal be guilty 
of such impiety ? Hath it never thundered on these mountain- 
heads? Doth Zeus, the wide-seeing, see all the earth but 
Ida? doth he watch over all but his own? Capaneus and 
Typhoeus less offended him, than would the wretch whose grasp 
should violate the golden hair of Helena. And dost thou stil 
tremble ? irresolute and distrustful ! 

HELENA. 

I must tremble ; and more and more. 

ACHILLES. 

Take my hand : be confident : be comforted. 

HELENA. 

May I take it ? may I hold it ? I am comforted. 

ACHILLES. 

The scene around us, calm and silent as the sky itself, 
tranquillises thee ; and so it ought. Turnest thou to survey 
it ? perhaps it is unknown to thee. 

HELENA. 

Truly • for since my arrival I have never gone beyond the 
walls of the city. 



ACHILLES AND HELENA. 



Look then around thee freely, perplexed no longer. Pleasant 
is this level eminence, surrounded by broom and myrtle, and 
crisp-leaved beech and broad dark pine above. Pleasant the 
short slender grass, bent by insects as they alight on it or climb 
along it, and shining up into our eyes, interrupted by tall 
sisterhoods of grey lavender, and by dark-eyed cistus, and by 
lightsome citisus, and by little troops of serpolet running in 
disorder here and there. 

HELENA. 

Wonderful ! how didst thou ever learn to name so many 
plants ? 

ACHILLES. 

Chiron taught me them, when I walked at his side while he 
was culling herbs for the benefit of his brethren. All these he 
taught me, and at least twenty more ; for wonderous was his 
wisdom, boundless his knowledge, and I was proud to learn. 

All look again ! look at those little yellow poppies ; they 
appear to be just come out to catch all that the sun will throw 
into their cups: they appear in their joyance and incipient 
dance to call upon the lyre to sing among them. 

HELENA. 

Childish ! for one with such a spear against his shoulder ; 
terrific even its shadow ; it seems to make a chasm across the 
plain. 

ACHILLES. 

To talk or to think like a child is not always a proof of folly: 
it may sometimes push aside heavy griefs where the strength of 
wisdom fails. What art thou pondering, Helena ? 

HELENA. 

Eecollecting the names of the plants. Several of them I 
do believe I had heard before, but had quite forgotten; my 
memory will be better now. 

ACHILLES. 

Better now ? in the midst of war and tumult ? 

HELENA. 

I am sure it will be, for didst thou not say that Chiron 
taught them ? 

ACHILLES. 

He sang to me over the lyre the lives of Narcissus and 
Hyacynthus, brought back by the beautiful Hours, of silent 



4 ACHILLES AND HELENA. 

unwearied feet, regular as the stars in their courses. Many of 
the trees and bright-eyed flowers once lived and moved, and 
spoke as we are speaking. They may yet have memories, 
although they have cares no longer. 

HELENA. 

Ah ! then they have no memories ; and they see their own 
beauty only. 

ACHILLES. 

Helena ! thou turnest pale, and droopest. 

HELENA. 

The odour of the blossoms, or of the gums, or the highth of 
the place, or something else, makes me dizzy. Can it be the 
wind in my ears ? 

ACHILLES. 

There is none. 

HELENA. 

I could wish there were a little. 

ACHILLES. 

Be seated, Helena ! 

HELENA. 

The feeble are obedient : the weary may rest even in the 
presence of the powerful. 

ACHILLES. 

On this very ground where we are now reposing, they who 
conducted us hither told me, the fatal prize of beauty was 
awarded. One of them smiled ; the other, whom in duty I 
love the most, looked anxious, and let fall some tears. 

HELENA. 

Yet she was not one of the vanquished. 

ACHILLES. 

Goddesses contended for it ; Helena was afar. 

HELENA. 

Fatal was the decision of the arbiter ! 

But could not the venerable Peleus, nor Pyrrhus the infant 
so beautiful and so helpless, detain thee, Achilles, from this 
sad sad war? 

ACHILLES. 

No reverence or kindness for the race of Atreus brought me 
against Troy; I detest and abhor both brothers: but another 
man is more hateful to me stil. Forbear we to name him. 



ACHILLES AND HELENA. 5 

The valiant, holding the hearth as sacred as the temple, is never 
a violator of hospitality. He carries not away the gold he 
finds in the house; he folds not up the purple linen worked for 
solemnities, about to convey it from the cedar chest to the dark 
ship, together with the wife confided to his protection in her 
husband's absence, and sitting close and expectant by the altar 
of the gods. 

It was no merit in Menalaiis to love thee; it was a crime in 
another. . I will not say to love, for even Priam or Nestor 
might love thee . . but to avow it, and act on the avowal. 

HELENA. 

Menalaiis, it is true, was fond of me, when Paris was sent by 
Aphrodite to our house. It would have been very wrong to 
break my vow to Menelaiis, but Aphrodite urged me by day 
and by night, telling me that to make her break hers to Paris 
would be quite inexpiable. She told Paris the same tiling at 
the same hour; and as often. He repeated it to me every 
morning: his dreams tallied with mine exactly. At last . . . 

ACHILLES. 

The last is not yet come. Helena! by the Immortals! if 
ever I meet him in battle I transfix him with this spear. 

HELENA. 

Pray do not. Aphrodite would be angry and never 
forgive thee. 

ACHILLES. 

I am not sure of that; she soon pardons. Variable as Iris, 
one day she favors and the next day she forsakes. 

HELENA. 

She may then forsake me. 

ACHILLES. 

Other deities, Helena, watch over and protect thee. Thy 
two brave brothers are with those deities now, and never are 
absent from their higher festivals. 

• HELENA. 

They could protect me were they living, and they would. 
that thou couldst but have seen them ! 

ACHILLES. 

Companions of my father on the borders of the Phasis, they 
became his guests before they went all three to hunt the boar 
in the brakes of Kalydon. Thence too the beauty of a woman 



ACHILLES AND HELENA. 

brought many sorrows into brave men's breasts, and caused 
many tears to hang long and heavily on the eyelashes of 
matrons. 

HELENA. 

Horrible creatures ! . . boars I mean. 
Didst thou indeed see my brothers at that season ? Yes, 
certainly. 

ACHILLES. 

I saw them not, desirous though I always was of seeing 
them, that I might have learnt from them, and might have 
practised with them, whatever is laudable and manly. But 
my father, fearing my impetuosity, as he said, and my inex- 
perience, sent me away. Soothsayers had foretold some mischief 
to me from an arrow : and among the brakes many arrows 
might fly wide, glancing from trees. 

HELENA. 

I wish thou hadst seen them, were it only once. Three 
such youths together the blessed sun will never shine upon 
again. 

my sweet brothers ! how they tended me ! how they 
loved me ! how often they wished me to mount their horses 
and to hurl their javelins. They could only teach me to swim 
with them ; and when I had well learnt it I was more afraid 
than at first. It gratified me to be praised for anything but 
swimming. 

Happy, happy hours ! soon over ! Does happiness always 
go away before beauty ? It must go then : surely it might 
stay that little while. Alas ! dear Kastor ! and dearer Poly- 
deukes ! often shall I think of you as ye were (and oh ! as I 
was) on the banks of the Eurotas. 

Brave noble creatures ! they were as tall, as terrible, and 
almost as beautiful, as thou art. Be not wroth ! Blush no 
more for me. 

ACHILLES. 

Helena ! Helena ! wife of Menelaus ! my mother is reported 
to have left about me only one place vulnerable : I have at last 
found where it is. Farewell ! 

HELENA. 

O leave me not ! Earnestly I entreat and implore thee, 
leave me not alone. These solitudes are terrible : there must 
be wild beasts among them; there certainly are Eauns and 



jESOP and rhodope. 



Satyrs. And there is Cybele, who carries towers and temples 
on her head ; who hates and abhors Aphrodite, who persecutes 
those she favors, and whose priests are so cruel as to be cruel 
even to themselves. 



ACHILLES. 



According to their promise, the goddesses who brought thee 
hither in a cloud will in a cloud reconduct thee, safely and 
unseen, into the city. 

Again, daughter of Leda and of Zeus, farewell ! 



^ESOP AND EHODOPE. 

— ♦ 



Albeit thou approachest me without any sign of derision, let 
me tell thee before thou advancest a step nearer, that I deem 
thee more hard-hearted than the most petulant of those 
other young persons, who are pointing and sneering from the 
door-way. 

EHODOPE. 

Let them continue to point and sneer at me : they are 
happy; so am I; but are you? Think me hard-hearted, 
' O good Phrygian ! but graciously give me the reason for 
thinking it; otherwise I may be unable to correct a fault 
too long overlooked by me, or to deprecate a grave infliction 
of the gods. 

^ISOP. 

I thought thee so, my little maiden, because thou earnest 
toward me without the least manifestation of curiosity. 

EHODOPE. 

Is the absence of curiosity a defect ? 

^3SOP. 

None whatever. 

EHODOPE. 

Are we blamable in concealing it if we have it ? 

^ESOP. 

Surely not. But it is feminine ; and where none of it comes 
forward, we may suspect that other feminine appurtenances, 
such as sympathy for example, are deficient. Curiosity slips 



b MSOP and rhodope. 

in among you before the passions are awake : curiosity 
comforts your earliest cries ; curiosity intercepts your latest. 
Tor which reason Daedalus, who not only sculptured but 
painted admirably, represents her in the vestibule of the Cretan 
labyrinth as a goddess. 

RHODOPE. 

What was she like ? 

-ESOP. 

There now ! Like ? Why, like Ehodope r 

RHODOPE. 

You said I have nothing of the kind. 

-ESOP. 

I soon discovered my mistake in this, and more than this, 
and not altogether to thy disadvantage. 

RHODOPE. 

I am glad to hear it. 

-ESOP. 

Art thou ? I will tell thee then how she was depicted : for 
I remember no author who has related it. Her lips were half- 
open ; her hair flew loosely behind her, designating that she 
was in haste ; it was more disordered, and it was darker, than 
the hair of Hope is represented, and somewhat less glossy. 
Her cheeks had a very fresh colour, and her eyes looked into 
every eye that fell upon them ; by her motion she seemed to 
be on her way into the labyrinth. 

RHODOPE. 

how I wish I could see such a picture ! 

-ESOP. 

1 do now. 

RHODOPE. 

Where ? where ? Troublesome man ! Are you always so 
mischievous ? but your smile is not ill-natured. I can not help 
thinking that the smiles of men are pleasanter and sweeter 
than of women ; unless of the women who are rather old and 
decrepit, who seem to want help, and who perhaps are thinking 
that we girls are now the very images of what they were 
formerly. But girls never look at me so charmingly as you 
do, nor smile with such benignity; and yet, Phrygian, 
there are several of them who really are much handsomer. 



.ESOP AND RHODOPE* V 

MSOF. 

Indeed ? Is that so clear ? 

RHODOPE. 

Perhaps in the sight of the gods they may not be, who see 
all things as they are. But some of them appear to me to be 
very beautiful. 

.ESOP. 

Which are those ? 

RHODOPE. 

The very girls who think me the ugliest of them all. 
How strange ! 

^SOP. 

That they should think thee so ? 

RHODOPE. 

No, no : but that nearly all the most beautiful should be 
of this opinion ; and the others should often come to look at 
me, apparently with delight, over each other's shoulder or 
under each other's arm, clinging to their girdle or holding by 
their sleeve and hanging a little back, as if there were something 
about me unsafe. They seem fearful regarding me; for here 
are many venomous things in this country, of which we have 
none at home. 

-E80P. 

And some which Ave find all over the world. But thou art 
too talkative. 

RHODOPE. 

Now indeed you correct me with great justice, and with 
great gentleness. I know not why I am so pleased to talk 
with you. But what you say to me is different from what 
others say : the thoughts, the words, the voice, the look, all 
different. And yet reproof is but little pleasant, especially to 
those who are unused to it. 

-ESOP. 

Why didst thou not spring forward and stare at me, having 
heard as the rest had done, that I am unwillingly a slave, and 
indeed not over- willingly a deformed one ? 

RHODOPE. 

I w 7 ould rather that neither of these misfortunes had 
befallen you. 

.ESOP. 

And yet within the year thou wilt rejoice that they have. 



10 ,£SOP and rhodope. 

RHODOPE. 

If you truly thought so, you would not continue to look at 
me with such serenity. Tell me why you say it. 

MSOP. 

Because by that time thou wilt prefer me to the handsomest 
slave about the house. 

RHODOPE. 

For shame ! vain creature ! 

MSOF. 

By the provision of the gods, the under-sized and distorted 
are usually so. The cork of vanity buoys up their chins above 
all swimmers on the tide of life. But, Rhodope, my vanity 
has not yet begun. 

RHODOPE. 

How do you know that my name is Rhodope ? 

,ESOP. 

Were I malicious I would inform thee, and turn against 
thee the tables on the score of vanity. 

RHODOPE. 

What can you mean ? 

MSOF. 

I mean to render thee happy in life, and glorious long after. 
Thou shalt be sought by the powerful, thou shalt be celebrated 
by the witty, and thou shalt be beloved by the generous and 
the wise. Xanthus may adorn the sacrifice, but the Immortal 
shall receive it from the altar. 

RHODOPE. 

I am but fourteen years old, and Xanthus is married. 
Surely he would not rather love me than one to whose habits 
and endearments he has been accustomed for twenty years. 

JESOP. 

It seems wonderful : but such things do happen. 

RHODOPE. 

Not among us Thracians. I have seen in my childhood 
men older than Xanthus, who, against all remonstrances and 
many struggles, have fondled and kissed, before near relatives, 
wives of the same age, proud of exhibiting the honorable 
love they bore toward them : yet in the very next room, the 
very same day, scarcely would they press to their bosoms 



^ESOP AND RHODOPE. 11 

while you could (rather slowly) count twenty, nor kiss for 
half the time, beautiful young maidens, who, casting down 
their eyes, never stirred, and only said "Don't! Don't I" 

What a rigid morality is the Thracian ! How courageous 
the elderly ! and how enduring the youthful ! 

RHODOPE. 

Here in Egypt we are nearer to strange creatures ; to men 
without heads, to others who ride on dragons. 

^SOP. 

Stop there, little Ehodope ! In all countries we live among 
strange creatures. However, there are none such in the 
world as thou hast been told of since thou earnest hither. 

RHODOPE. 

Oh yes there are. You must not begin by shaking my 
belief, and by making me know less than others of my age. 
They all talk of them : nay, some creatures not by any means 
prettier, are worshipped here as deities : I have seen them with 
my own eyes. I wonder that you above all others should 
deny the existence of prodigies. 

^SOP. 

Why dost thou wonder at it particularly in me ? 

RHODOPE. 

Because when you were brought hither yesterday, and when 
several of my fellow-maidens came around you, questioning 
you about the manners and customs of your country, you 
began to tell them stories of beasts who spoke, and spoke 
reasonably. 

^SOP. 

They are almost the only people of my acquaintance who do. 

RHODOPE. 

And you call them by the name of people ? 

^ISOP. 

For want of a nobler and a better. Didst thou hear related 
what I had been saying ? 

RHODOPE. 

Yes, every word, and perhaps more. 

^SOP. 

Certainly more; for my audience was of females. But 
canst thou repeat any portion of the narrative ? 



12 ^ESOP AND RHODOPE. 

RHODOPE. 

They began by asking you whether all the men in Phrygia 
were like yourself. 

^SOP. 

Art thou quite certain that this was the real expression they 
used ? Come : no blushes. Do not turn round. 

RHODOPE. 

It had entirely that meaning. 

^SOP. 

Did they not inquire if all Phrygians were such horrible 
monsters as the one before them ? 

RHODOPE. 

heaven and earth ! this man is surely omniscient. 
Kind guest ! do not hurt them for it. Deign to repeat to me, 
if it is not too troublesome, what you said about the talking 
beasts. 

^!SOP. 

The innocent girls asked me many questions, or rather 
half- questions ; for never was one finished before another from 
the same or from a different quarter was begun. 

RHODOPE. 

This is uncivil : I would never have interrupted you. 

.ESOP. 

Pray tell me why all that courtesy. 

RHODOPE. 

Por fear of losing a little of what you were about to say, or 
of receiving it somewhat changed. We never say the same 
thing in the same manner w r hen we have been interrupted. 
Beside, there are many who are displeased at it ; and if you 
had been, it would have shamed and vexed me. 

^:sop. 

Art thou vexed so easily ? 

RHODOPE, 

When I am ashamed I am. I shall be jealous if you are 
kinder to the others than to me, and if you refuse to tell me 
the story you told them yesterday. 

^SOP. 

1 have never yet made anyone jealous ; and I will not begin 
to try my talent on little Rhodope. 



JESOV AND RHODOPE. 13 

They asked me who governs Phrygia at present. I replied 
that the Phrygians had just placed themselves under the 
dominion of a sleek and quiet animal, half-fox, half-ass, named 
Alopiconos. At one time he seems fox almost entirely; at 
another, almost entirely ass. 

EHODOPE. 

And can he speak ? 

-&SOP. 

Few better. 

EHODOPE. 

Are the Phrygians contented with him ? 

^:sop. 

They who raised him to power and authority rub their 
hands rapturously : nevertheless, I have heard several of the 
principal ones, in the very act of doing it, breathe out from 
closed teeth, " The cursed fox!" and others, " The cursed ass!" 

EHODOPE. 

What has he done ? 

^ISOP. 

He has made the nation the happiest in the world, they 
tell us. 

EHODOPE. 

How? 

-&SOP. 

. By imposing a heavy tax on the necessaries of life, and 
thus making it quite independent. 

EHODOPE. 

iEsop ! I am ignorant of politics, as of everything else. 
We Thracians are near Phrygia : our kings, I believe, have 
not conquered it : what others have ? 

iESOP. 

None : but the independence which Alopiconos has con- 
ferred upon it, is conferred by hindering the corn of other 
lands, more fertile and less populous, from entering it, until 
so many of the inhabitants have died of famine and disease, 
that there will be imported just enough for the remainder. 

EHODOPE. 

Holy Jupiter ! protect my country ! and keep for ever its 
asses and its foxes wider apart ! 

Tell me more. You know many things that have happened 
in the world. Beside the strange choice you just related, 



14 jESOP and rhodope. 

what is the most memorable thing that has occurred in 
Phrygia since the Trojan war ? 

An event more memorable preceded it ; but nothing since 
will appear to thee so extraordinary. 

KHODOPE. 

Then tell me only that. 

^SOP. 

It will interest thee less, but the effect is more durable than 
of the other. Soon after the dethronement of Saturn, with 
certain preliminary ceremonies, by his eldest son Jupiter, who 
thus became the legitimate king of gods and men, the lower 
parts of nature on our earth were likewise much affected. At 
this season the water in all the rivers of Phrygia was running 
low, but quietly, so that the bottom was visible in many places, 
and grew tepid and warm and even hot in some. At last it 
became agitated and excited ; and loud bubbles rose up from 
it, audible to the ears of Jupiter, declaring that it had an 
indefeasible right to exercise its voice on all occasions, and of 
rising to the surface at all seasons. Jupiter, who was ever 
much given to hilarity, laughed at this : but the louder he 
laughed, the louder bubbled the mud, beseeching him to 
thunder and lighten and rain in torrents, and to sweep away 
dams and dykes and mills and bridges and roads, and more- 
over all houses in all parts of the country that were not built 
of mud. Thunder rolled in every quarter of the heavens : the 
lions and panthers were frightened and growled horribly : 
the foxes, who are seldom at fault, began to fear for the farm- 
yards ; and were seen with vertical tails, three of which, if put 
together, would be little stouter than a child's whip for 
whipping-tops, so thoroughly soaked were they and draggled 
in the mire : not an animal in the forest could lick itself dry : 
their tongues ached with attempting it. But the mud gained 
its cause, and rose above the river-sides. At first it was 
elated by success ; but it had floated in its extravagance no 
long time before a panic seized it, at hearing out of the clouds 
the fatal word teleutaion, which signifies final. It panted and 
breathed hard; and, at the moment of exhausting the last 
remnant of its strength, again it prayed to Jupiter, in a 
formulary of words which certain borderers of the principal 
stream suggested, imploring him that it might stop and 



yESOP AND RHODOPE. 15 

subside. It did so. The borderers enriched their fields with 
it, carting it off, tossing it about, and breaking it into powder. 
But the streams were too dirty for decent men to bathe in 
them; and scarcely a fountain in all Phrygia had as much 
pure water, at its very source, as thou couldst carry on thy 
head in an earthen jar. For several years afterward there 
were pestilential exhalations, and drought and scarcity, 
throughout the country. 

RHODOPE. 

This is indeed a memorable event ; and yet I never heard 
of it before. 

.&30P. 

Dost thou like my histories ? 

RHODOPE. 

Very much indeed. 

£]SOP. 

Both of them ? 

RHODOPE. 

Equally. 

uESOP. 

Then, PJiodope, thou art worthier of instruction than any- 
one I know. I never found an auditor, until the present, 
w r ho approved of each; one or other of the two was sure to be 
defective in style or ingenuity : it showed an ignorance of the 
times or of mankind : it proved only that the narrator was a 
person of contracted views, and that nothing pleased him. 

RHODOPE. 

How could you have hindered, with as many hands as Gyas, 
and twenty thongs in each, the fox and ass from uniting ? or 
how could you prevail on Jupiter to keep the mud from 
bubbling? I have prayed to him for many things more 
reasonable, and he has never done a single one of them ; 
except the last, perhaps. 

uESOP. 

What was it ? 

RHODOPE. 

That he would bestow on me power and understanding to 
comfort the poor slave from Phrygia. 

.ESOP. 

On what art thou reflecting ? 



16 yESOP AND RHODOPE. 

RHODOPE. 

I do not know. Is reflection that which will not lie quiet 
on the mind, and which makes us ask ourselves questions we 
can not answer ? 

.ESOP. 

Wisdom is but that shadow which we call reflection ; dark 
always, more or less, but usually the most so where there is 
the most light around it. 

RHODOPE. 

I think I begin to comprehend you ; but beware lest any 
one else should. Men will hate you for it, and may hurt 
you; for they will never bear the wax to be melted in the 
ear, as your words possess the faculty of doing. 

MSOF. 

They may hurt me, but I shall have rendered them a service 
first. 

RHODOPE. 

JEsop ! if you think so, you must soon begin to instruct 
me how I may assist you, first in performing the service, and 
then in averting the danger : for I think you will be less liable 
to harm if I am with you. 

^JSOP. 

Proud child ! 

RHODOPE. 

Not yet ; I may be then. 

MSOF. 

We must converse about other subjects. 

RHODOPE. 

On what rather ? 

^ISOP. 

1 was accused by thee of attempting to unsettle thy belief 
in prodigies and portents. 

RHODOPE. 

Teach me what is right and proper in regard to them, and 
in regard to the gods of this country who send them. 

MSOF. 

We will either let them alone, or worship them as our 
masters do. But thou mayst be quite sure, O Ehodope, that 
if there were any men without heads, or any who ride upon 
dragons, they would have been worshipped as deities long 
ago. 



-ffiSOP AND UHODOPE. 17 

RHODOPE. 

Ay ; now you talk reasonably : so they would : at least I 
think so : I mean only in this country. In Thrace we do not 
think so unworthily of the gods : we are too afraid of Cerberus 
for that. 

^SSOP. 

Speak lower; or thou wilt raise ill blood between him and 
Anubis. His three heads could hardly lap milk when Anubis 
with only one could crack the thickest bone. * 

RHODOPE. 

Indeed ! how proud you must be to have acquired such 
knowledge. 

.ESOP. 

It is the knowledge which men most value, as being the 
most profitable to them • but I possess little of it. 

RHODOPE. 

What then will you teach me ? 

^ISOP. 

I will teach thee, Rhodope, how to hold Love by both 
wings, and how to make a constant companion of an ungrateful 
guest. 

RHODOPE. 

I think I am already able to manage so little a creature. 

^SOP. 

He hath managed greater creatures than Rhodope. 

RHODOPE. 

They had no scissors to clip his pinions, and they did not 
slap him soon enough on the back of the hand. I have often 
wished to see him; but I never have seen him yet. 

MSOF. 

Nor anything like ? 

RHODOPE. 

I have touched his statue ; and once I stroked it down, all 
over ; very nearly. He seemed to smile at me the more for 
it, until I was ashamed. I was then a little girl : it was long 
ago : a year at least. 

-2ESOP. 

Art thou sure it was such a long while since ? 



18 iESOP AND RHODOPE. 

rhodope. 

How troublesome ! Yes ! I never told anybody but you : 
and I never would have told you, unless I had been certain 
that you would find it out by yourself, as you did what those 
false foolish girls said concerning you. I am sorry to call 
them by such names, for I am confident that on other things 
and persons they never speak maliciously or untruly. 

^SSOP. 

Not abtmt thee ? 

RHODOPE. 

They think me ugly and conceited, because they do not 
look at me long enough to find out their mistake. I know I 
am not ugly, and I believe I am not conceited : so I should 
be silly if I were offended, or thought ill of them in return. 
But do you yourself always speak the truth, even when you 
know it ? The story of the mud, I plainly see, is a mythos. 
Yet, after all, it is difficult to believe ; and you have scarcely 
been able to persuade me, that the beasts in any country talk 
and reason, or ever did. 

mso-p. 
Wherever they do, they do one thing more than men do. 

RHODOPE. 

You perplex me exceedingly : but I would not disquiet you 
at present with more questions. Let me pause and consider a 
little, if you please. I begin to suspect that, as gods formerly 
did, you have been turning men into beasts, and beasts into 
men. But, iEsop, you should never say the thing that is 
untrue. 

^SOP. 

We say and do and look no other all our lives. 

RHODOPE. 

Do we never know better ? 



Yes i when we cease to please, and to wish it ; when death 
is settling the features, and the cerements are ready to render 
them unchangeable. 

RHODOPE. 

Alas ! alas ! 



.&SOP AND RHODOPE. 19 



Breathe, Rhodope, breathe again those painless sighs : they 
belong to thy vernal season. May thy summer of life be 
calm,, thy autumn calmer, and thy winter never come. 

RHODOPE. 

I must die then earlier. 

£ISOP. 

Laodameia died ; Helen died ; Leda, the beloved of Jupiter, 
went before. It is better to repose in the earth betimes than 
to sit up late ; better, than to cling pertinaciously to what we 
feel crumbling under us, and to protract an inevitable fall. 
We may enjoy the present while we are insensible of infirmity 
and decay : but the present, like a note in music, is nothing 
but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come. 
There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave : 
there are no voices, Rhodope, that are not soon mute, 
however tuneful : there is no name, with whatever emphasis of 
passionate love repeated, of winch the echo is not faint at last. 

RHODOPE. 

iEsop ! let me rest my head on yours : it throbs and 
pains me. 

^SOP. 

■ What are these ideas to thee ? 



Sad, sorrowful. 

^:sop. 

Harrows that break the soil, preparing it for wisdom. 
Many flowers must perish ere a grain of corn be ripened. 
And now remove thy head : the cheek is cool enough after its 
little shower of tears. 

RHODOPE. 

How impatient you are of the least pressure ? 

2ESOP. 

There is nothing so difficult to support imperturbably as 
the head of a lovely girl, except her grief. Again upon mine ! 
forgetful one ! Raise it, remove it, I say. Why wert thou 
reluctant ? why wert thou disobedient ? Nay, look not so. 
It is I (and thou shalt know it) who should look reproachfully. 

c 2 



20 jEsop and rhodope. 



Beproachfully ? did I ? I was only wishing you would love 
me better, that I might come and see you often. 

^SOP. 

Come often and see me, if thou wilt ; but expect no love 
from me. 

RHODOPE. 

Yet how gently and gracefully you have spoken and acted, 
all the time we have been together. You have rendered the 
most abstruse things intelligible, without once grasping my 
hand, or putting your fingers among my curls. 

.ffiSOP. 

I should have feared to encounter the displeasure of two 
persons if I had. 

RHODOPE. 

And well you might. They would scourge you, and scold 
me. 

.ffiSOP. 

That is not the worst. 

RHODOPE. 

The stocks too, perhaps. 

-ESOP. 

All these are small matters to the slave. 

RHODOPE. 

If they befell you, I would tear my hair and my cheeks, and 
put my knees under your ancles. Of whom should you have 
been afraid ? 

MSOF. 

Of Ehodope and of iEsop. Modesty in man, Ehodope, 
is perhaps the rarest and most difficult of virtues : but in- 
tolerable pain is the pursuer of its infringement. Then follow 
days without content, nights without sleep, throughout a 
stormy season, a season of impetuous deluge which no fertility 
succeeds. 

RHODOPE. 

My mother often told me to learn modesty, when I was at 
play among the boys. 

Modesty in girls is not an acquirement, but a gift of nature : 
and it costs as much trouble and pain in the possessor to 
eradicate, as the fullest and firmest lock of hair would do. 



jESOP and rhodope. 21 

rhodope. 
Never shall I be induced to believe that men at all value it 
in themselves, or much in us, although from idleness or 
from rancour they would take it away from us whenever they 
can. 

.ESOP. 

And very few of you are pertinacious : if you run after them, 
as you often do, it is not to get it back. 

RHODOPE. 

I would never run after any one, not even you : I would 
only ask you, again and again, to love me. 

MSOF. 

Expect no love from me. I will impart to thee all my wisdom, 
such as it is ; but girls like our folly best. Thou shalt never 
get a particle of mine from me. 

RHODOPE. 

Is love foolish ? 

JESOP. 

At thy age and at mine. I do not love thee : if I did, 1 
would the more forbid thee ever to love me. 

RHODOPE. 

Strange man ! 

.ESOP. 

Strange indeed. "When a traveller is about to wander on a 
desert, it is strange to lead him away from it; strange to point 
out to him the verdant path he should pursue, where the 
tamarisk and lentisk and acacia wave overhead, where the 
reseda is cool and tender to the foot that presses it, and where 
a thousand colours sparkle in the sunshine, on fountains 
incessantly gushing forth. 

RHODOPE. 

Xanthus has all these; and I could be amid them in a 
moment. 

JESOP. 

Why art not thou ? 

RHODOPE. 

I know not exactly. Another day perhaps. I am afraid of 
snakes this morning. Beside, I think it may be sultry out of 
doors. Does not the wind blow from Libya ? 



22 ^ESOP AND RHODOPE. 

.3ESOP. 

It blows as it did yesterday when I came over, fresh across 
the iEgean, and from Thrace. Thou mayest venture into the 
morning air. 

RHODOPE. 

No hours are so adapted to study as those of the morning. 
But will you teach me ? I shall so love you if you will. 

MSOF. 

If thou wilt not love me, I will teach thee. 

RHODOPE. 

Unreasonable man ! 

-ESOP. 

Art thou aware what those mischievous little hands are 
doing ? 

RHODOPE. 

They are tearing off the golden hem from the bottom of my 
robe ; but it is stiff and difficult to detach. 

-ffiSOP. 

Why tear it off? 

RHODOPE. 

To buy your freedom. Do you spring up, and turn away, 
and cover your face from me ? 

-ZESOP. 

My freedom ! Go, Ehodope ! Rhodope ! This, of all things, 
I shall never owe to thee. 

RHODOPE. 

Proud man ! and you tell me to go ! do you ? do you? 
Answer me at least. Must I ? and so soon? 

.ffiSOP. 

Child ! begone ! 

RHODOPE. 

iEsop, you are already more my master than Xanthus 
is. I will run and tell him so ; and I will implore of him, 
upon my knees, never to impose on you a command so hard 
to obey. 



jESop and rhodope. 23 



SECOND CONVERSATION. 



And so, our fellow-slaves are given to contention on the 
score of dignity ? 

RHODOPE. 

I do not believe they are much addicted to contention : for, 
whenever the good Xanthus hears a signal of such misbehaviour, 
he either brings a scourge into the midst of them, or sends our 
lady to scold them smartly for it. 

Admirable evidence against their propensity ! 

RHODOPE. 

I will not have you find them out so, nor laugh at them. 

,ESOP. 

Seeing that the good Xanthus and our lady are equally fond 
of thee, and always visit thee both together, the girls, however 
envious, can not well or safely be arrogant, but must of 
necessity yield the first place to thee. 

RHODOPE. 

. They indeed are observant of the kindness thus bestowed 
upon me : yet they afflict me by taunting me continually with 
what I am unable to deny. 

If it is true, it ought little to trouble thee ; if untrue, less. 
I know, for I have looked into nothing else of late, no evil can 
thy heart have admitted : a sigh of thine before the Gods 
would remove the heaviest that could fall on it. Pray tell me 
what it may be, Come, be courageous ; be cheerful. I can 
easily pardon a smile if thou empleadest me of curiosity. 

RHODOPE. 

They remark to me that enemies or robbers took them 
forcibly from their parents . , and that . . and that . . . 

m&o?. 

Likely enough : what then ? Why desist from speaking ? 
why cover thy face with thy hair and hands? Ehodope! 
Ehodope ! dost thou weep moreover ? 



24 ^SOP AND RHODOPE. 

RHODOPE. 

It is so sure ! 

.ESOP. 

Was the fault tliine ? 

RHODOPE. 

that it were ! . . if there was any. 

JESOP. 

"While it pains thee to tell it, keep thy silence ; but when 
utterance is a solace, then impart it. 

RHODOPE. 

They remind me (oh ! who could have had the cruelty to 
relate it ?) that my father, my own dear father . . . 

JSSOP. 

Say not the rest : I know it : his day was come. 

RHODOPE. 

. . sold me, sold me. You start : you did not at the lightning 
last night, nor at the rolling sounds above. And do you, 
generous iEsop ! do you also call a misfortune a disgrace ? 

J3SOP. 

If it is, I am among the most disgraceful of men. Didst 
thou dearly love thy father ? 

RHODOPE. 

All loved him. He was very fond of me. 

^SOP. 

And yet sold thee ! sold thee to a stranger ! 

RHODOPE. 

He was the kindest of all kind fathers, nevertheless. Nine 
summers ago, you may have heard perhaps, there was a 
grievous famine in our land of Thrace. 

^SSOP. 

1 remember it perfectly. 

RHODOPE. 

poor iEsop ! and were you too famishing in your native 

Phrygia ? 

The calamity extended beyond the narrow sea that separates 
our countries. My appetite was sharpened; but the appetite 
and the wits are equally set on the same grindstone. 



.ESOP AND RHODOPE. 25 

RHODOPE. 

I was then scarcely five years old : my mother died the 
year before : my father sighed at every funereal, but he. sighed 
more deeply at every bridal, song. He loved me because he 
loved her who bore me : and yet I made him sorrowful whether 
I cried or smiled. If ever I vexed him, it was because I 
would not play when he told me, but made him, by my 
weeping, weep again. 

J3SOP. 

And yet he could endure to lose thee ! he, thy father ! 
Could any other ? could any who lives on the fruits of the 
earth, endure it ? age, that art incumbent over me ! blessed 
be thou; thrice blessed ! Not that thou stillest the tumults 
of the heart, and promisest eternal calm, but that, prevented 
by thy beneficence, I never shall experience this only intolerable 
wretchedness. 

RHODOPE. 

Alas ! alas ! 

MSOP. 

Thou art now happy, and shouldst not utter that useless 
exclanlation. 

RHODOPE. 

You said something angrily and vehemently when you 
stepped aside. Is it not enough that the handmaidens doubt 
the kindness of my father ? Must so virtuous and so wise a 
man as iEsop blame him also ? 

.ESOP. 

Perhaps he is little to be blamed ; certainly he is much to 
be pitied. 

RHODOPE. 

Kind heart ! on which mine must never rest ! 

mso?. 

Eest on it for comfort and for counsel when they fail thee : 
rest on it, as the Deities on the breast of mortals, to console 
and purify it. 

RHODOPE. 

Could I remove any sorrow from it, I should be contented. 

^ISOP. 

Then be so; and proceed in thy narrative.- 

RHODOPE. 

Bear with me a little yet. My thoughts have overpowered 
my words, and now themselves are overpowered and scattered. 



26 JESOP AND 11H0D0PE. 

Forty-seven days ago (this is only the forty-eighth since I 
beheld you first) I was a child ; I was ignorant, I was careless. 

2ESOP. 

If these qualities are signs of childhood, the universe is a 
nursery. 

RHODOPE. 

Affliction, which makes many wiser, had no such effect on 
me. But reverence and love (why should I hesitate at the one 
avowal more than at the other ?) came over me, to ripen my 
understanding. 

2ESOP. 

Rhodope ! we must loiter no longer upon this discourse. 

RHODOPE. 

Why not? 

iESOP. 

Pleasant is yonder beanfield, seen over the high papyrus 
when it waves and bends : deep laden with the sweet heaviness 
of its odour is the listless air that palpitates dizzily above it : 
but Death is lurking for the slumberer beneath its blossoms. 

RHODOPE. 

You must not love then ! . . but may not I ? 

^SOP. 

We will . . but . . . 

RHODOPE. 

We I sound that is to vibrate on my breast for ever ! 
hour ! happier than all other hours since time began ! 
O gracious Gods ! who brought me into bondage ! 

-ESOP. 

Be calm, be composed, be circumspect. We must hide our 
treasure that we may not lose it. 

RHODOPE. 

1 do not think that you can love me ; and I fear and tremble 
to hope so. All, yes ; you have said you did. But again you 
only look at me, and sigh as if you repented. 

^SOP. 

Unworthy as I may be of thy fond regard, I am not 
unworthy of thy fullest confidence : why distrust me ? 

RHODOPE. 

Never will I . . never, never. To know that I possess 
your love, surpasses all other knowledge, dear as is all that I 



.ESOP AND RHODOPE. 27 

receive from you. I should be tired of my own voice if I 
heard it on aught beside : and, even yours is less melodious in 
any other sound than Rhodope. 

.ESOP. 

Do such little girls learn to natter ? 

RHODOPE. 

Teach me how to speak, since you could not teach me how 
to be silent. 

.ESOP. 

Speak no longer of me, but of thyself; and only of things 
that never pain thee. 

RHODOPE. 

Nothing can pain me now. 

£:sop. 
Relate thy story then, from infancy. 

RHODOPE. 

I must hold your hand : I am afraid of losing you again. 

.ESOP. 

Now begin. Why silent so long ? 

RHODOPE. 

I have dropped all memory of what is told by me and what 
is untold. 

-ESOP. 

Recollect a little. I can be patient with this hand in mine. 

RHODOPE. 

I am not certain that yours is any help to recollection. 

^:sop. 
Shall I remove it ? 

RHODOPE. 

! now I think I can recall the whole story. "What did 
you say ? did you ask any question ? 

^SOP. 

None, excepting what thou hast answered. 

RHODOPE. 

Never shall I forget the morning when my father, sitting in 
the coolest part of the house, exchanged his last measure of 
grain for a chlamys of scarlet cloth fringed with silver. He 
watched the merchant out of the door, and then looked wistfully 



28 ^SOP AND RHODOPE. 

into the corn-chest. I, who thought there was something 
worth seeing, looked in also, and, finding it empty, expressed 
my disappointment, not thinking however about the corn. 
A faint and transient smile came over his countenance at the 
sight of mine. He unfolded the chlamys, stretched it out 
with both hands before me, and then cast it over my shoulders. 
I looked down on the glittering fringe and screamed with joy. 
He then went out ; and I know not what flowers he gathered, 
but he gathered many ; and some he placed in my bosom, and 
some in my hair. But I told him with captious pride, first 
that I could arrange them better, and again that I would have 
only the white. However, when he had selected all the white, 
and I had placed a few of them according to my fancy, I told 
him (rising in my slipper) he might crown me with the 
remainder. The splendour of my apparel gave me a sensation 
of authority. Soon as the flowers had taken their station on 
my head, I expressed a dignified satisfaction at the taste 
displayed by my father, just as if I could have seen how they 
appeared ! But he knew that there was at least as much 
pleasure as pride in it, and perhaps we divided the latter (alas ! 
not both) pretty equally. He now took me into the market- 
place, where a concourse of people was waiting for the 
purchase of slaves. Merchants came and looked at me; 
some commending, others disparaging ; but all agreeing that 
I was slender and delicate, that I could not live long, and that 
I should give much trouble. Many would have bought the 
chlamys, but there was something less saleable in the child and 
flowers. 

.ffiSOP. 

Had thy features been coarse and thy voice rustic, they 
would all have patted thy cheeks and found no fault in thee. 

RHODOP£. 

As it was, every one had bought exactly such another in 
time past, and been a loser by it. At these speeches I 
perceived the flowers tremble slightly on my bosom, from my 
father's agitation. Although he scoffed at them, knowing my 
healthiness, he was troubled internally, and said many short 
prayers, not very unlike imprecations, turning his head aside. 
Proud was I, prouder than ever, when at last several talents 
were offered for me, and by the very man who in the beginning 
had undervalued me the most, and prophesied the worst of me. 



JESOV AND RHODOPE. 29 

Jty father scowled at him, and refused the money. I thought 
he was playing a game, and began to wonder what it could 
be, since I never had seen it played before. Then I fancied it 
might be some celebration because plenty had returned to the 
city, insomuch that my father had bartered the last of the 
corn he hoarded. I grew more and more delighted at the 
sport. But soon there advanced an elderly man, who said 
gravely, "Thou hast stolen this child: her vesture alone is 
worth above a hundred drachmas. Carry her home again to 
her parents, and do it directly, or Nemesis and the Eumenides 
will overtake thee." Knowing the estimation in which my 
father had always been holden by his fellow- citizens, I laughed 
again, and pinched his ear. He, although naturally choleric, 
burst forth into no resentment at these reproaches, but said 
calmly, " I think I know thee by name, guest ! Surely 
thou art Xanthus the Samian. Deliver this child from 
famine." 

Again I laughed aloud and heartily ; and, thinking it was 
now my part of the game, I held out both my arms and pro- 
truded my whole body toward the stranger. He would not 
receive me from my father's neck, but he asked me with 
benignity and solicitude if I was hungry : at which I laughed 
again, and more than ever : for it was early in the morning, 
soon after the first meal, and my father had nourished me 
most carefully and plentifully in all the days of the famine. 
But Xanthus, waiting for no answer, took out of a sack, 
which one of his slaves carried at his side, a cake of wheaten 
bread and a piece of honey-comb, and gave them to me. I 
held the honey-comb to my father's mouth, tliinking it the 
most of a dainty. He dashed it to the ground ; but, seizing 
the bread, he began to devour it ferociously. This also I 
thought was jn play ; and I clapped my hands at his distor- 
tions. But Xanthus looked on him like one afraid, and 
smote the cake from him, crying aloud, "Xame the price." 
My father now placed me in his arms, naming a price much 
below what the other had offered, saying, " The Gods are ever 
with thee, Xanthus ! therefor to thee do I consign my 
child." But while Xanthus was counting out the silver, my 
father seized the cake again, which the slave -had taken up and 
was about to replace in the wallet. His hunger was exaspe- 
rated by the taste and the delay. Suddenly there arose much 
tumult. Turning round in the old woman's bosom who had 



30 jESop and rhodope. 

received me from Xanthus, I saw my beloved father struggling 
on the ground, livid and speechless. The more violent my 
cries, the more rapidly they hurried me away ; and many were 
soon between us. Little was I suspicious that he had suffered 
the pangs of famine long before : alas ! and he had suffered 
them for me. Do I weep while I am telling you they ended ? 
I could not have closed his eyes ; I was too young : but I 
might have received his last breath; the only comfort of 
an orphan's bosom. Do you now think him blamable, 
^Esop ? 

msov. 
It was sublime humanity: it was forbearance and self-denial 
which even the immortal gods have never shown us. He 
could endure to perish by those torments which alone are both 
acute and slow ; he could number the steps of death and miss 
not one : but he could never see thy tears, nor let thee see 
his. weakness above all fortitude ! Glory to the man 
who rather bears a grief corroding his breast, than permits it 
to prowl beyond, and to prey on the tender and compassionate ! 
Women commiserate the brave, and men the beautiful. The 
dominion of Pity has usually this extent, no wider. Thy 
father was exposed to the obloquy not only of the malicious, 
but also of the ignorant and thoughtless, who condemn in the 
unfortunate what they applaud in the prosperous. There is 
no shame in poverty or in slavery, if we neither make ourselves 
poor by our improvidence nor slaves by our venality. The 
lowest and highest of the human race are sold : most of the 
intermediate are also slaves, but slaves who bring no money 
in the market. 

RHODOPE. 

Surely the great and powerful are never to be purchased : 
are they ? 

^ESOP. 

It may be a defect in my vision, but I can not see greatness 
on the earth. "What they tell me is great and aspiring, to me 
seems little and crawling. Let me meet thy question with 
another. What monarch gives his daughter for nothing? 
Either he receives stone walls and unwilling cities in return, 
or he barters her for a parcel of spears and horses and horse- 
men, waving away from his declining and helpless age young 
joyous life, and trampling down the freshest and the sweetest 
memories. Midas in the highth of prosperity would have 



JESOV AND RHODOPE. 31 

given his daughter to Lycaon, rather than to the gentlest, the 
most virtuous, the most intelligent of his subjects. Thy 
father threw wealth aside, and, placing thee under the pro- 
tection of Virtue, rose up from the house of Famine to partake 
in the festivals of the gods. 

Eelease my neck, Ehodope ! for I have other questions 
to ask of thee about him. 

RHODOPE. 

To hear thee converse on him in such a manner, I can do 
even that. 



Before the day of separation was he never sorrowful ? Did 
he never by tears or silence reveal the secret of his soul ? 

RHODOPE. 

I was too infantine to perceive or imagine his intention. 
The night before I became the slave of Xanthus, he sat on the 
edge of my bed. I pretended to be asleep : he moved away 
silently and softly. I saw him collect in the hollow of his 
hand the crumbs I had wasted on the floor, and then eat 
them, and then look if any were remaining. I thought he 
did so out of fondness for me, remembering that, even before 
the famine, he had often swept up off the table the bread I had 
broken, and had made me put it between his lips. I would 
not dissemble very long, but said, 

"Come, now you have wakened me, you must sing me 
asleep again, as you did when I was little." 

He smiled faintly at this, and, after some delay, when he 
had w r alked up and down the chamber, thus began : 

" I will sing to thee one song more, my wakeful Ehodope ! 
my chirping bird ! over whom is no mother's wing ! That it 
may lull thee asleep, I will celebrate no longer, as in the days 
of wine and plenteousness, the glory of Mars, guiding in their 
invisibly rapid onset the dappled steeds of Ehaesus. "What 
hast thou to do, my little one, with arrows tired of clustering 
in the quiver? How much quieter is thy pallet than the 
tents which whitened the plain of Simois ! What knowest 
thou about the river Eurotas ? What knowest thou about its 
ancient palace, once trodden by assembled Gods, and then 
polluted by the Phrygian? What knowest thou of perfidious 
men or of sanguinary deeds ? 



32 .ESOP AND RHODOPE. 

u Pardon me, goddess who presidest in Cythera ! I am 
not irreverent to thee, but ever grateful. May she upon 
whose brow I lay my hand, praise and bless thee for ever- 
more ! 

" Ah yes ! continue to hold up above the coverlet those 
fresh and rosy palms clasped together : her benefits have 
descended on thy beauteous head, my child ! The Fates also 
have sung, beyond thy hearing, of pleasanter scenes than 
snow-fed Hebrus ; of more than dim grottoes and sky-bright 
w r aters. Even now a low murmur swells upward to my ear : 
and not from the spindle comes the sound, but from those 
who sing slowly over it, bending all three their tremulous 
heads together. I wish thou couldst hear it ; for seldom are 
their voices so sweet. Thy pillow intercepts the song perhaps : 
lie down again, lie down, my Rhodope ! I will repeat what 
they are saying : 

" e Happier shalt thou be, nor less glorious, than even she, 
the truly beloved, for whose return to the distaff and the lyre 
the portals of Tsenarus flew open. In the woody dells of 
Ismarus, and when she bathed among the swans of Strymon, 
the Nymphs called her Eurydice. Thou shalt behold that 
fairest and that fondest one hereafter. But first thou must 
go unto the land of the lotos, where famine never cometh, 
and where alone the w r orks of man are immortal/ 

" my child ! the undeceiving Eates have uttered this. 
Other Powers have visited me, and have strengthened my 
heart with dreams and visions. We shall meet again, my 
Rhodope ! in shady groves and verdant meadows, and we 
shall sit by the side of those who loved us." 

He was rising : I threw my arms about his neck, and, 
before I would let him go, I made him promise to place me, 
not by the side, but between them : for I thought of her who 
had left us. At that time there were but two, iEsop ! 

You ponder : you are about to reprove my assurance in 
having thus repeated my own praises. I would have omitted 
some of the words, only that it might have disturbed the 
measure and cadences, and have put me out. They are the 
very words my dearest father sang ; and they are the last : yet, 
shame upon me ! the nurse (the same who stood listening 
near, who attended me into this country) could remember 
them more perfectly : it is from her I have learnt them since ; 
she often sings them, even by herself. 



SOLON AND PISISTTIATUS, 33 

So shall others. There is much both in them and in thee 
to render them memorable. 

RHODOPE. 

Who natters now ? 

.ESOP. 

Flattery often runs beyond Truth, in a hurry to embrace 
her ; but not here. The dullest of mortals, seeing and hear- 
ing thee, would never misinterpret the prophecy of the Fates. 

If, turning back, I could overpass the vale of years, and 
could stand on the mountain-top, and could look again far 
before me at the bright ascending morn, we would enjoy the 
prospect together ; we would walk along the summit hand in 
hand, Khodope, and we would only sigh at last when we 
found ourselves below with others. 



SOLON AND PISISTEATUS. 



PISISTPvATUS. 

Here is a proof, Solon, if any were wanting, that either my 
power is small or my inclination to abuse it : you speak just 
as freely to me as formerly, and add unreservedly, which you 
never did before, the keenest sarcasms and the bitterest 
reproaches. Even such a smile as that, so expressive of 
incredulity and contempt, would arouse a desire of vengeance, 
difficult to control, in any whom you could justly call impostor 
and usurper. ' 

SOLON. 

I do you no injustice, Pisistratus, which I should do if I 
feared you. Neither your policy nor your temper, neither 
your early education nor the society you have since frequented, 
and whose power over the mind and affections you can not at 
once throw off, would permit you to kill or imprison, or even 
to insult or hurt me. Such an action, you well know, would 
excite in the people of Athens as vehement a sensation as your 
imposture of the wounds, and you would lose your authority 



34 SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 

as rapidly as you acquired it. This however, you also know, 
is not the consideration which hath induced me to approach 
you, and to entreat your return, while the path is yet open, to 
reason and humanity. 

PISISTRATUS. 

What inhumanity, my friend, have I committed ? 

SOLON. 

No deaths, no tortures, no imprisonments, no stripes : but 
worse than these ; the conversion of our species into a lower ; 
a crime which the poets never feigned, in the wild attempts 
of the Titans or others who rebelled against the gods, and 
against the order they established here below. 

PISISTRATUS. 

Why then should you feign it of me ? 



I do not feign it : and you yourself shall bear me witness 
that no citizen is further removed from falsehood, from the 
perversion of truth by the heat of passion, than Solon. 
Choose between the friendship of the wise and the adulation 
of the vulgar. Choose, do I say, Pisistratus? No, you 
can not : your choice is already made. Choose then between 
a city in the dust and a city flourishing. 

PISISTRATUS. 

How so ? who could hesitate ? 



If the souls of the citizens are debased, who cares whether 
its walls and houses be stil upright or thrown down ? When 
free men become the property of one, when they are brought 
to believe that their interests repose on him alone, and must 
arise from him, their best energies are broken . irreparably. 
They consider his will as the rule of their conduct, leading to 
emolument and dignity, securing from spoliation, from scorn, 
from contumely, from chains, and seize this compendious 
blessing (such they think it) without exertion and without 
reflection. From which cause alone there are several ancient 
nations so abject, that they have not produced in many 
thousand years as many rational creatures as we have seen 
together round one table in the narrowest lane of Athens. 



SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 35 

PISISTRATUS. 

But, Solon, you yourself are an example, ill treated as you 
have been, that the levity of the Athenian people requires a 
guide and leader. 

SOLON. 

There are those who, by their discourses and conduct, 
inflate and push forward this levity, that the guide and leader 
may be called for ; and who then offer their kind services, 
modestly, and by means of friends, in pity to the weakness of 
their fellow -citizens, taking care not only of their follies, but 
also their little store of wisdom, putting it out to interest 
where they see fit, and directing how and where it shall be 
expended. Generous hearts ! the Lacedemonians themselves. 
in the excess of their democracy, never were more zealous that 
corn and oil should be thrown into the common stock, than 
these are that minds should, and that no one swell a single 
line above another. Their own meanwhile are fully adequate 
to all necessary and useful purposes, and constitute them a 
superintending Providence over the rest. 

PISISTRATUS. 

Solon, I did not think you so addicted to derision : you 
make me join you. This in the latter part is a description of 
despotism ; a monster of Asia, and not yet known even in the 
most uncivilised region of Europe. Tor the Thracians and 
others, who have chieftains, have no kings, much less despots. 
In speaking of them we use the word carelessly, not thinking 
it worth our while to form names for such creatures, any 
more than to form collars and bracelets for them, or rings (if 
they use them) for their ears and noses. 



Preposterous as this is, there are things more so, under our 
eyes : for instance, that the sound should become lame, the 
wise foolish, and this by no affliction of disease or age. You 
go further; and appear to wish that a man should become a 
child again : for what is it else, when he has governed himself, 
that he should go back to be governed by another ? and for 
no better reason than because, as he is told, that other has 
been knocked down and stabbed. Incontrovertible proofs of 
his strength, his prudence, and the love he has been capable 
of conciliating in those about him ! 



36 SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 

PISISTRATUS. 

Solon ! it would better become the gravity of your age, the 
dignity of your character, and the office you assume of adviser, 
to address me with decorous and liberal moderation, and to 
treat me as you find me. 



So small a choice of words is left us, when we pass out of 
Atticism into barbarism, that I know not whether you, distin- 
guished as you are both for the abundance and the selection 
of them, would call yourself in preference king or tyrant. The 
latter is usually the most violent, at least in the beginning ; 
the former the most pernicious. Tyrants, like ravens and 
vultures, are solitary : they either are swept off, or languish 
and pine away, and leave no brood in their places. Kings, as 
the origin of them is amid the swamps and wildernesses, take 
deeper root, and germinate more broadly in the loose and 
putrescent soil, and propagate their likenesses for several 
generations ; a brood which (such is the power of habitude) 
does not seem monstrous, even to those whose corn, wine, 
and oil, it swallows up every day, and whose children it con- 
sumes in its freaks and festivals. I am ignorant under what 
number of them, at the present day, mankind in various 
countries lies prostrate ; just as ignorant as I am how many 
are the desarts and caverns of the earth, or the eddies and 
whirlpools of the sea ; but I should not be surprised to find it 
stated that, in Asia and Africa, there may be a dozen, greater 
or less. Europe has never been amazed at such a portent, 
either in the most corrupted or the most uncivilised of her 
nations, as a hereditary chief in possession of absolute power. 

PISISTRATUS. 

The first despots were tyrannical and cruel. 

SOLON. 

And so the last will be. This is w r anting, on some occasions, 
to arouse a people from the lethargy of servitude ; and there- 
for I would rather see the cruelest usurper than the mildest 
king. Under him men lose the dignity of their nature : under 
the other they recover it. 

PISISTRATUS. 



Hereditary kings too have been dethroned. 



SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 37 



Certainly: for, besotted as those must be who have endured 
them, some subject at last hath had the hardihood and spirit 
to kick that fellow in the face and trample on him, who insists 
that the shoe must fit him because it fitted his father and 
grandfather, and that, if Ins foot will not enter, he will pare 
and rasp it. 

PISISTRATUS. 

The worst of wickedness is that of bearing hard on the 
unfortunate, and near it is that of running down the 
fortunate : yet these are the two commonest occupations of 
mankind. We are despised if we are helpless ; we are teased 
by petulance and tormented by reprehension if we are strong. 
One tribe of barbarians would drag us into their own dry 
desarts, and strip us to the skin : another would pierce us with 
arrows for being naked. What is to be done ? 

SOLON. 

Simpler men run into no such perplexities. Your great 
wisdom, O Pisistratus, will enable you in some measure to 
defend your conduct ; but your heart is the more vulnerable 
from its very greatness. 

PISISTRATUS. 

I intend to exert the authority that is conferred on me by 
the people, in the maintenance of your laws, knowing no better. 

SOLON. 

Better there may be, but you will render worse necessary ; 
and would you have it said hereafter by those who read them, 
* Pisistratus was less wise than Solon ?" 

PISISTRATUS. 

It must be said ; for none among men hath enjoyed so high 
a character as you, in wisdom and integrity. 

SOLON. 

Either you lie now, Pisistratus, or you lied when you 
abolished my institutions. 

PISISTRATUS. 

They exist, and shall exist, I swear to you. 

SOLON. 

Yes, they exist like the letters in a burnt paper, which are 
looked down on from curiosity, and just legible, while the last 
of the consuming fire is remaining, but they crumble at a 
touch, and indeed fly before it, weightless and incoherent. 



38 SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 

Do you desire, Pisistratus, that your family shall inherit 
your anxieties ? If you really feel none yourself, which you 
never will persuade me, nor (I think) attempt it, stil you may 
be much happier, much more secure and tranquil, by ceasing 
to possess what you have acquired of late, provided you cease 
early ; for long possession of any property makes us anxious to 
retain it, and insensible, if not to the cares it brings with it, at 
least to the real cause of them. Tyrants will never be per- 
suaded that their alarms and sorrows, their perplexity and 
melancholy, are the product of tyranny : they will not attribute 
a tittle of them to their own obstinacy and perverseness, but 
look for it all in another's. They would move everything and 
be moved by nothing ; and yet lighter things move them than 
any other particle of mankind. 

PISISTRATUS. 

You are talking, Solon, of mere fools. 

SOLON. 

The worst of fools, Pisistratus, are those who once had 
wisdom. Not to possess what is good is a misfortune; to 
throw it away is a folly : but to change what we know hath 
served us, and would serve us stil, for what never has and 
never can, for what on the contrary hath always been pernicious 
to the holder, is the action of an incorrigible idiot. Observa- 
tions on arbitrary power can never be made usefully to its 
possessors. There is not a foot-page about them at the bath 
whose converse on this subject is not more reasonable than 
mine would be. I could adduce no argument which he would 
not controvert, by the magical words " practical things'" and 
" present times i" a shrug of the shoulder would overset all that 
my meditations have taught me in half a century of laborious 
inquiry and intense thought. "These are theories/'' he would 
tell his master, " fit for Attica before the olive was sown among 
us. Old men must always have their way. Will their own 
grey beards never teach them that time changes things V* 

One fortune hath ever befallen those whom the indignant 
gods have cursed with despotical power ; to feed upon false- 
hood, to loath and sicken at truth, to avoid the friendly, to 
discard the wise, to suspect the honest, and to abominate the 
brave. Like grubs in rotten kernels, they coil up for safety in 
dark hollowness, and see nothing but death in bursting from it. 



SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 39 

Although they place violence in the highest rank of dignities 
and virtues, and draw closely round their bodies those whose 
valour, from the centre to the extremities, should animate the 
state, yet they associate the most intimately with singers, with 
buffoons, with tellers of tales, with prodigies of eating and 
drinking, with mountebanks, with diviners. These captivate and 
enthrall their enfeebled and abject spirits ; and the first cry 
that rouses them from their torpor is the cry that demands their 
blood. Then would it appear by their countenances, that all 
they had scattered among thousands, had come secretly back 
again to its vast repository, and was issuing forth from every 
limb and feature, from every pore, from every hair upon their 
heads. 

What is man at last, Pisistratus, when he is all he hath 
ever wished to be ! the fortunate, the powerful, the supreme ! 
Life in its fairest form (such he considers it) comes only to 
flatter and deceive him. Disappointments take their turn, and 
harass him : weakness and maladies cast him down : pleasures 
catch him again when he rises from them, to misguide and 
blind and carry him away : ambition struggles with those 
pleasures, and only in struggling with them seems to be his 
friend ; they mar one another, and distract him : enemies 
encompass him ; associates desert him; rivalries thwart, perse- 
cutions haunt him: another's thoughts molest and injure him; 
his own do worse than join with them : and yet he shudders 
and shrinks back at nothing so much as the creaking of that 
door by which alone there is any escape. 

Pisistratus ! Pisistratus ! do we tire out the patience of 
mankind, do we prey upon our hearts, for this ? Does Nature 
crave it ? Does Wisdom dictate it ? Can Power avert it ? 
Descend then from a precipice, it is difficult to stand, it is 
impossible to* repose on. Take the arm that would lead you 
and support you back, and restore you to your friends and 
country, He who places himself far above them, is (any child 
might tell you) far from them. What on earth can be imagined 
so horrible and disheartening, as to live without ever seeing 
one creature of the same species! Being a tyran or despot, 
you are in this calamity. Imprisonment in a dungeon could 
not reduce you to it : false friends have done that for you 
which enemies could but attempt. If such is the harvest of 
their zeal, when they are unsated and alert, what is that which 
remains to be gathered in by you, when they are full and 



40 SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 

weary ? Bitterness ; the bitterness of infamy ! And how will 
you quench it ? By swallowing the gall of self-reproach ! 

Let me put to you a few questions, near to the point : you 
will answer them, I am confident, easily and affably. 

Pisistratus, have you not felt yourself the happier, when in 
the fulness of your heart, you have made a large offering to 
the gods ? 

PISISTRATTJS. 

Solon, I am not impious : I have made many such offerings 
to them, and have always been the happier. 

SOLON. 

Did they need your sacrifice ? 

PISISTRATUS. 

They need nothing from us mortals ; but I was happy in the 
performance of what I have been taught is my duty. 

SOLON. 

Piously, virtuously, and reasonably said, my friend. The 
gods did not indeed want your sacrifice : they, who give every- 
thing, can want nothing. The Athenians do want a sacrifice 
from you : fliey have an urgent necessity of something ; the 
necessity of that very thing which you have taken from them, 
and which it can cost you nothing to replace. You have 
always been happier, you confess, in giving to the gods what 
you could have yourself used in your own house : believe me, 
you will not be less so in giving back to your fellow-citizens 
what you have taken out of theirs and what you very well 
know they will seize when they can, together with your pro- 
perty and life. You have been taught, you tell me, that 
sacrifice to the gods is a duty : be it so : but who taught you 
it ? Was it a wiser man than you or I ? Or was it at a time 
of life when your reason was more mature than at present, or 
your interests better understood? No good man ever gave 
anything without being the more happy for it, unless to the 
undeserving, nor ever took anything away without being the 
less so. But here is anxiety and suspicion, a fear of the 
strong, a subjection to the weak ; here is fawning, in order to 
be fawned on again, as among suckling whelps half awake. He 
alone is the master of his fellow-men, who can instruct and 
improve them ; while he who makes the people another thing 
from what it was, is master of that other tiling, but not of 
the people. And supposing we could direct the city exactly 



SOLON AND PISISTKATUS. 41 

as we would, is our greatness to be founded on this ? A ditcher 
may do greater things : he may turn a torrent (a thing even 
more turbid and more precipitate) by his ditch. A sudden 
increase of power, like a sudden increase of blood, gives 
pleasure; but the new excitement being once gratified, the 
pleasure ceases. 

I do not imagine the children of the powerful to be at any 
time more contented than the children of others, although I 
concede that the powerful themselves may be so for some 
moments, paying however very dearly for those moments, by 
more in quantity and in value. Give a stranger, who has 
rendered you no service, four talents : the suddenness of the 
gift surprises and delights him : take them away again, saying, 
"Excuse me; I intended them for your brother; yet, not 
wholly to disappoint you, I give you two/' What think you ; 
do you augment or diminish that man's store of happiness ? 

PISISTRATUS. 

It must depend on his temper and character : but I think in 
nearly all instances you would diminish it. 

SOLON. 

Certainly. When we can not have what we expect, we are 
dissatisfied; and what we have ceases to afford us pleasure. 
We are like infants ; deprive them of one toy, and they push 
the rest away, or break them, and turn their faces from you, 
crying inconsolably. 

If you desire an increase of happiness, do not look for it, 
Pisistratus, in an increase of power. Follow the laws of 
nature on the earth. Spread the seeds of it far and wide : 
your crop shall be in proportion to your industry and 
liberality. What you concentrate in yourself, you stifle ; you 
propagate what you communicate. 

Stil silent ? Who is at the door ? 

PISISTRATUS. 

The boys. 

SOLON. 

Come, my little fugitives ! turn back again hither ! come to 
me, Hippias and Hipparchus ! I wish you had entered earlier ; 
that you might have witnessed my expostulation with your 
father, and that your tender age might have produced upon 
him the effect my declining one has failed in. Children, you 
have lost your patrimony. Start not, Pisistratus ! I do not 



42 SOLON AND PISISTRATUS. 

tell them that you have squandered it away : no, I will never 
teach them irreverence to their parent ; aid me, I entreat 
you, to teach them reverence. Do not, while the thing is 
recoverable, deprive them of filial love, of a free city, of 
popular esteem, of congenial sports, of kind confidence, of 
that which all ages run in pursuit of, equals. Children seek 
those of the same age, men those of the same condition. 
Misfortunes come upon all : who can best ward them off ? 
not those above us nor those below, but those on a level -with 
ourselves. Tell me, Pisistratus, what arm hath ever raised up 
the pillow of a dying despot ? He hath loosened the bonds 
of nature : in no hour, and least of all in the last, can they be 
strengthened and drawn together. It is a custom, as you 
know, for you have not yet forgotten all our customs, to 
conduct youths with us when we mark the boundaries of our 
lands, that they may give their testimony on any suit about 
them in time to come. Unfortunate boys ! their testimony 
cannot be received : the landmarks are removed from their 
own inheritance by their own father. Armed men are placed 
in front of them for ever, and their pleasantest walks through- 
out life must be guarded by armed men. Who would endure 
it ? one of the hardest things to which the captive, or even 
the criminal, is condemned. The restraints which every one 
would wish away, are eternally about them ; those which the 
best of us require through life, are removed from them on 
entering it. Their passions not only are uncontrolled, but 
excited, fed, and flattered, by all around, and mostly by their 
teachers. Do not expose them to worse monsters than the 
young Athenians were exposed to in the time of Theseus. 
Never hath our city, before or since, endured such calamity, 
such ignominy. A king, a conqueror, an injured and exas- 
perated enemy, imposed them : shall a citizen, shall a benefi- 
cent man, shall a father, devise more cruel and moi:e shameful 
terms, and admit none but his own offspring to fulfill them ? 
That monster perhaps was fabulous. that these were so ! 
and that pride, injustice, lust, were tractable to any clue or 
conquerable by any courage of despotism ! 

Weak man ! will sighing suffocate them ? will holding 
down the head confound them ? 

Hippias and Hipparchus ! you are now the children of 
Solon, the orphans of Pisistratus. If I have any wisdom, it 
is the wisdom of experience : it shall cost you nothing from 



ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 48 

me, from others much. I present to you a fruit which the 
gods themselves have fenced round, not only from the animals, 
but from most men ; one which I have nurtured and watched 
day and night for seventy years, reckoning from the time 
when my letters and duties were first taught me ; a lovely, 
sweet, and wholesome fruit, my children, and which, like the 
ambrosia of the blessed in Olympus, grows by participation 
and enjoyment. 

You receive it attentively and gratefully : your father, who 
ought to know its value, listens and rejects it. I am not 
angry with him for this ; and, if I censure him before you, I 
blame myself also in his presence. Too frequently have 
I repeated my admonition : I am throwing my time away, 
I who have so little left me : I am consuming my heart with 
sorrow, when sorrow and solicitudes should have ceased; 
and for whom ? for him principally who will derive no good 
from it, and will suffer none to flow on others, not even on 
those the dearest to him. Think, my children, how unwise 
a man is Solon, how hard a man Pisistratus, how mistaken in 
both are the Athenians. Study to avoid our errors, to correct 
our faults, and by simplicity of life, by moderation in your 
hopes and wishes, to set a purer and (grant it, Heaven !) a 
more stabile example than we have done. 



ANACEEON AND POLYCEATES. 



POLYCRATES. 

Embrace me, my brother poet. 

ANACREON. 

What have you written, Polycrates ? 

POLYCRATES. 

Nothing. But invention is the primary part of us ; and the 
mere finding of a brass ring in the belly of a dogfish, has afforded 
me a fine episode in royalty. You could not have made so 
much out of it. 



44 ANACREON AND POLYCRATEb. 

AXACREOX. 

I have heard various stories this morning about the matter : 
and, to say the truth, my curiosity led me hither. 

POLYCRATES. 

It was thus. I ordered my cook to open, in the presence of 
ten or twelve witnesses, a fat mullet, and to take out of it an 
emerald ring, which I had laid aside from the time when, as you 
may remember, I felt some twitches of the gout in my knuckle. 

ANACREOX. 

The brass ring was really found in a fish some time ago : 
might not a second seem suspicious ? And with what object 
is this emerald one extracted from such another mine ? 

POLYCRATES. 

To prove the constancy and immutability of my fortune. It 
is better for a prince to be fortunate than wise : people know 
that his fortune may be communicated, his wisdom not ; and, if 
it could, nobody would take it who could as readily carry off a 
drachma. In fact, to be fortunate is to be powerful, and not 
only without the danger of it, but without the displeasure. 

ANACREOX. 

Ministers are envied, princes never ; because envy can exist 
there only where something (as people think) may be raised or 
destroyed. You were proceeding very smoothly with your 
reflections, Polycrates, but, with all their profundity, are you 
unaware that mullets do not eat such things ? 

POLYCRATES. 

True; the people however swallow anything; and, the 
further out of the course of nature the action is, the greater 
name for good fortune, or rather for the favour of divine 
providence, shall I acquire. 

AXACREOX. 

Is that the cook yonder ? 

POLYCRATES. 

Yes ; and he also has had some share of the same gifts. 
I have rewarded him with an Attic talent : he seems to be 
laying the gold pieces side by side, or in lines and quincunxes, 
just as if they were so many dishes. 



AXACREON AND POLYCRATES. 45 

ANACREOX. 

I go to hirn and see . . . By Jupiter ! rny friend, you have 
made no bad kettle of fish of it to-day . . . The fellow does 
not hear me. Let us hope, Polycrates, that it may not break 
in turning out. If your cook was remunerated so magnificently, 
what must you have done for the fisherman ! 

POLYCRATES. 

He was paid the price of his fish. 

ANACREON. 

Royally said and done ! Your former plan was more 
extensive. To feign that a brazen ring was the ring of Gyges 
is indeed in itself no great absurdity ; but to lay claim to the 
kingdom of Lydia by the possession of it, was extravagant. 
Croesus is unwarlike and weak, confident and supercilious, and 
you had prepared the minds of his officers by your liberality, 
not to mention the pity and sorrow we put together over our 
wine, ready to pour it forth on the bleeding hearts of his 
subjects, treated so ungenerously for their fidelity. Yet your 
own people might require, at least once a-year, the proof of 
your invisibility in public by putting on the brazen ring. 

POLYCRATES. 

I had devised as much : nothing is easier than an optical 
deception, at the distance that kings on solemn occasions keep 
from the people. A cloud of incense rising from under the 
floor through several small apertures, and other contrivances 
were in readiness. But I abandoned my first design, and 
thought of conquering Lydia, instead of claiming it from 
inheritance. For, the ring of a fisherman would be too 
impudent a fabrication, in the claim of a kingdom or even of 
a village, and my word upon other occasions might be doubted. 
Croesus is superstitious : there are those about him who will 
persuade him not to contend with a man so signally under the 
protection of the gods. 

ANACREON. 

Can not you lay aside all ideas of invasion, and rest quiet and 
contented here ? 

POLYCRATES. 

Xo man, Anacreon, can rest anywhere quiet in Ins native 
country who has deprived Ins fellow-citizens of their liberties ; 
contented are they only who have taken nothing from another \ 



46 ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 

and few even of those. As, by eating much habitually, we 
render our bodies by degrees capacious of more, and uncomfort- 
able without it, so, after many acquisitions, we think new ones 
necessary. Hereditary kings invade each other's dominions 
from the feelings of children, the love of having and of 
destroying ; their education being always bad, and their intel- 
lects for the most part low and narrow. But we who have 
great advantages over them in our mental faculties, these 
having been constantly exercised and exerted, and in our 
knowledge of men, wherein the least foolish of them are quite 
deficient, find wars and civil tumults absolutely needful to our 
stability and repose. 

ANACREON. 

By Hercules ! you people in purple are very like certain 
sea-fowls I saw in my voyage from Teios hither. In fine 
weather they darted upward and downward, sidelong and cir- 
cuitously, and fished and screamed as if all they seized and 
swallowed was a torment to them: again, wdien it blew a 
violent gale, they appeared to sit perfectly at their ease, buoyant 
upon the summit of the waves. 

POLYCRATES. 

After all, I cannot be thought to have done any great injury 
to my friends the citizens of Samos. It is true I have taken 
away what you ingenious men call their liberties : but have 
you never, my friend Anacreon, snatched from a pretty girl a 
bracelet or locket, or other such trifle ? 

ANACREON. 

Not without her permission, and some equivalent. 

POLYCRATES. 

I likewise have obtained the consent of the people, and have 
rendered them a great deal more than an equivalent. Formerly 
they called one another the most opprobrious names in their 
assemblies, and sometimes even fought there ; now they never 
do. I entertained from the very beginning so great a regard 
for them, that I punished one of my brothers with death, and 
the other with banishment, for attempting to make divisions 
among them, and for impeding the measures I undertook to 
establish unanimity and order. My father had consented to 
bear alone all the toils of government ; and filial piety induced 
me to imitate his devotion to the commonwealth. The people 



ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 47 

had assembled to celebrate tlie festival of Juno, and had 
crowded the avenues of her temple so unceremoniously and 
indecorously, that I found it requisite to slay a few hundreds 
to her glory. King Lygdamus of Naxos lent me his assistance 
in this salutary operation, well knowing that the cause of 
royalty in all countries, being equally sacred, should be equally 
secure. 

ANACREON. 

My sweet Poly crates ! do not imagine that I, or any wise 
man upon earth, can be interested in the fate of a nation that 
yields to the discretion of one person. But pray avoid those 
excesses which may subject the Graces to the Tempests. Let 
people live in peace and plenty, for your own sake; and 
go to war then only when beauteous slaves are wanting. Even 
then it is cheaper to buy them of the merchant, taking care 
that at every importation you hire a philosopher or poet to 
instruct them in morality and religion. The one will demon- 
strate that obedience is a virtue; the other, that it is a 
pleasure. If age stimulates the senses, or if youth is likely to 
return (as the ring did), not a syllable can I add against the 
reasonableness of conquests to assuage the wants of either. 

POLYCRATES. 

The people in all countries must be kept in a state of 
activity : for men in cities, and horses in stables, grow restive 
by standing still. It is the destination of both to be patted, 
ridden, and whipped. The riding is the essential thing ; the 
patting and ^whipping are accessories ; and few are very careful 
or expert in timing them. 

ASACREON. 

In courts, where silliness alone escapes suspicion, we must 
shake false lights over the shallows, or we shall catch nothing. 
But, Polycrates ! I am not in the court of a prince : I am 
in the house of a friend. I might flatter you, if flattery could 
make you happier : but, as you have neglected nothing which 
could render my abode with you delightful, I would omit no 
precaution, no suggestion, which may secure and prolong my 
blessings. Do not believe that every poet is dishonest, because 
most are. Homer was not ; Solon is not ; I. doubt at times 
whether I myself am ; in despite of your inquisitive eye. My 
opinion of your wisdom is only shaken by your assumption of 
royalty, since I can not think it an act of discretion to change 



4S ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 

tranquillity for alarm, or friends for soldiers, or a couch for a 
throne, or a sound sleep for a broken one. If you doubt 
whether I love you (and every prince may reasonably entertain 
that doubt of every man around him), yet you can not doubt 
that I am attached to your good fortune, in which I have 
partaken to my heart's content, and in which I hope to continue 
a partaker. 

POLYCRATES. 

May the Gods grant it ! 

ANACREON. 

Grant it yourself, Poly crates, by following my counsel. 
Everything is every man's over which his senses extend. 
What you can enjoy is yours ; what you can not, is not. Of 
all the ilands in the world the most delightful and the most 
fertile is Samos. Crete and Cyprus are larger ; what then ? 
The little Teios, my own native country, affords more pleasure 
than any one heart can receive : not a hill in it but contains 
more beauty and more wine than the most restless and active 
could enjoy. Teach the Samiots, Polycrates, to refuse you 
and each other no delight that is reciprocal and that lasts. 
Royalty is the farthest of all things from reciprocity, and 
what delight it gives must be renewed daily, and with difficulty. 
In the order of nature, flowers grow on every side of us : 
why take a ploughshare to uproot them ? We may show our 
strength and dexterity in guiding it for such a purpose, but 
not our wisdom. Love, in its various forms, according to 
our age, station, and capacity, is the only object of reasonable 
and just desire. I prefer that which is the easiest to give 
and to return : you, since you have chosen royalty, have 
taken the most difficult in both : yet by kindness and 
courtesy you may conciliate those minds, which, once abased 
by royalty, never can recover their elasticity and strength, 
unless in the fires of vengeance. The gods avert it from 
you, my friend ! Do not inure your people to war : but 
instead of arming and equipping them, soften them more 
and more by peace and luxury. Let your deceit in the ring 
be your last : for men will rather be subjugated than deceived, 
not knowing, or not reflecting, that they must have been 
deceived before they could be subjugated. Let you and me 
keep this secret : that of the cook is hardly so safe. 



ANACUEON AND POLYCRATES. 49 



POLYCRATES. 



Perfectly, or death would have sealed it; although my cook 
is, you know, an excellent one, and would be a greater loss 
to me than any native of the iland. A tolerably good 
minister of state may be found in any cargo of slaves 
that lands upon the coast. Interest ensures fidelity. As for 
difficulty, I see none : to handle great bodies requires little 
delicacy. He would make in a moment a hole through a 
mud-wall who could never make the eye of a needle : and 
it is easier to pick up a pompion than a single grain of dust. 
With you however who have lived among such people, and 
know them thoroughly, I need not discourse long about 
them, nor take the trouble to argue how impossible it is to 
blunder on so wide and smooth a road, where every man is 
ready with a lamp if it is dark or with a cart if it is miry. 
You know that a good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. 
He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, 
from the palate to the finger's end. Pleasure and displeasure, 
sickness and health, life and death, are consigned to his 
arbitration. It would be little to add that he alone shares 
with royalty the privilege of exemption from every punish- 
ment but capital : for it would be madness to flog either, and 
turn it loose. 

The story of the ring will be credited as long as I want it ; 
probably all my life, perhaps after. Por men are swift to 
take up a miracle, and slow to drop it; and woe to the 
impious wretch who would undeceive them ! They never will 
believe that I can be unprosperous, until they see me put 
to death : some, even then, would doubt whether it were I, 
and others whether I were really dead, the day following. As 
we are in no danger of any such event, let us go and be 
crowned for the feast, and prove whether the mullet has any 
other merits than we have yet discovered. 

Come, Anacreon, you must write an ode to Fortune, not 
forgetting her favorite. 

ANACREON. 

I dare not, before I have written one to Juno, the patroness 
of Samos : but, as surely as you are uncrucified, I will do it 
then. Pardon me however if I should happen to praise the 
beauty of her eyes, for I am used to think more about the 
goddess who has the loveliest ; and, even if I began with the 
Puries, I should end in all likelihood with her. 



50 ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 

POLYCRATES. 

Follow your own ideas. You can not fail, however, to 
descant on the facility with which I acquired my power, and 
the unanimity by which I retain it, under the guidance and 
protection of our patroness. I had less trouble in becoming 
the master of Samos than you will have in singing it. Indeed, 
when I consider how little I experienced, I wonder that 
liberty can exist in any country where there is one wise and 
resolute man. 

ANACREON. 

And I that tyranny can, where there are two. 

POLYCRATES. 

"What ! Anacreon, are even you at last so undisguisedly 
my adversary ? 

ANACREON. 

Silly creature ! behold the fruit of royalty ! Eottenness in 
the pulp, and bitterness in the kernel. 

Polycrates, if I had uttered those words before the people, 
they would have stoned me for being your enemy . . for being 
a traitor ! This is the expression of late, not applied to those 
who betray, but to those who resist or traverse the betrayer. 
To such a situation are men reduced when they abandon 
self-ride ! I love you from similarity of studies and inclina- 
tions, from habit, from gaiety of heart, and because I live 
with you more conveniently than in a meaner house and 
among coarser slaves. As for the Samiots, you can not 
suppose me much interested about them. Beauty itself is 
the less fierce from servitude ; and there is no person, young 
or old, who does not respect more highly the guest of 
Polycrates than the poet of Teios. You, my dear friend, 
who are a usurper, for which courage, prudence, affability, 
liberality, are necessary, would surely blush to act no better 
or more humanely than a hereditary and established king, 
the disadvantages of whose condition you yourself have 
stated admirably. Society is not yet trodden down and 
forked together by you into one and the same rotten mass, 
with rank weeds covering the top and sucking out its 
juices. Circe, when she transformed the companions of 
Ulysses into swine, took no delight in drawing their tusks 
and ringing their snouts, but left them, by special grace, in 
quiet and full possession of their new privileges and dignities. 



ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 51 

The rod of enchantment was the only rod she used among 
them, finding a pleasanter music in the chorusses of her 
nymphs than in the grunts and squeals of her subjects. 

POLYCRATES. 

Now, tell me truly, Anacreon, if you knew of a conspiracy 
against me, would you reveal it ? 

ANACREON. 

I would ; both for your sake and for the conspirators. 
Even were I not your guest and friend, I would dissuade 
from every similar design. 

POLYCRATES. 

In some points, however, you appear to have a fellow feeling 
with the seditious. You differ from them in this : you wonld 
not take the trouble to kill me, and could not find a convenient 
hour to run away. 

ANACREON. 

I am too young for death, too old for flight, and too com- 
fortable for either. As for killing you, I find it business 
enough to kill a kid as a sacrifice to Bacchus. Answer rne 
as frankly as I answered you. If by accident you met a 
girl carried off by force would you stop the ravisher ? 

POLYCRATES. 

Certainly, if she were pretty : if not, I would leave the 
offence to its own punishment. 

ANACREON. 

If the offence had been perpetrated to its uttermost extent, 
if the girl were silent, and if the brother unarmed should rush 
upon the perpetrator armed . . . 

POLYCRATES, 

I would catch him by the sleeve and stop him. 

ANACREON. 

I would act so in this business of yours. You have 
deflowered the virgin. Whether the action will bring after it 
the full chastisement, I know not: nor whether the laws 
will ever wake upon it, or, waking upon it, whether they will 
not hold their breath and lie quiet. Weazels, and other 
animals that consume our corn, are strangled or poisoned, 
as may happen : usurpers and conquerors must be taken 
off quietly in one way only, lest many perish in the attempt, 

e2 



52 ANACREON AND POLYCBATES. 

and lest it fail. No conspiracy of more than two persons 
ought ever to be entered into on such a business. Hence 
the danger is diminished to those concerned, and the satis- 
faction and glory are increased. Statues can be erected to 
two, not to many ; gibbets can be erected as readily to many 
as to few ; and would be ; for most conspiracies have been 
discovered and punished, while hundreds of usurpers have 
been removed by their cooks, their cup-bearers, and their 
mistresses, as easily, and with as little noise or notice, as a 
dish from the table, or a slipper from the bed-side. 

Banish the bloated and cloudy ideas of war and conquest. 
Continue to eat while you have anything in your mouth, par- 
ticularly if sweet or savoury, and only think of filling it again 
when it is empty. 

Croesus hath no naval force, nor have the Persians : they 
desire the fish but fear the water, and will mew and purr over 
you until they fall asleep and forget you, unless you plunge 
too loud and glitter too near. They would have attacked you 
in the beginning, if they had ever wished to do it, or been 
ignorant that kings have an enemy the less on the ruin of 
every free nation. I do not tell you to sit quiet, any more 
than I would a man who has a fever or an ague, but to sit as 
quiet as your condition will permit. If you leave to others 
their enjoyments, they will leave yours to you. Tyrants never 
perish from tyranny, but always from folly ; when their 
fantasies build up a palace for which the earth has no founda- 
tion. It then becomes necessary, they think, to talk about 
their similitude to the gods, and to tell the people, " We 
have a right to rule you, just as they have a right to rule us : 
the duties they exact from us, we exact from you : we are 
responsible to none but to them." 

POLYCKATES. 

Anacreon ! Anacreon ! who, in the name of Hermes, ever 
talked thus since the reign of Salmoneus ? People who would 
listen to such inflated and idle arrogance, must be deprived, 
not of their liberties only, but their senses. Lydians or 
Carians, Cappadocians or Carmanians, would revolt at it : I 
myself would tear the diadem from my brow, before I would 
commit such an outrage on the dignity of our common nature. 
A little fallacy, a little fraud and imposture, may be requisite 
to our office, and principally on entering it ; there is however 



ANACREON AND POLYCRATES. 

no need to tell the people that we, on our consciences, lay the 
public accounts before Jupiter for his signature \ that, if there 
is any surplus, we will return it hereafter ; but that, as honest 
and pious men, their business is with him, not with us. 

My dear Anacreon, you reason speciously, which is better 
in most cases than reasoning soundly ; for many are led by it 
and none offended. But as there are pleasures in poetry 
which I can not know, in like manner there are pleasures in 
royalty which you can not. Say what you will, we have this 
advantage over you. Sovrans and poets alike court us ; they 
alike treat you with malignity and contumely. Do you 
imagine that Hylactor, supposing him to feign a little in 
regard to me, really would on any occasion be so enthusiastic 
in vour favour as he was in mine ? 

ANACREON. 

You allude to the village-feast, in which he requested from 
your hand the cup you had poured a libation from, and 
tasted ? 

POLTCRATES. 

The very instance I was thinking on. 

ANACREON. 

Hylactor tells a story delightfully, and his poetry is better 
than most poets will allow. 

POLTCRATES. 

I do not think it . . I speak of the poetry. 

ANACREON. 

Now, my dear Polycrates, without a word of flattery to you, 
on these occasions you are as ignorant as a goat-herd. 

POLYCRATES. 

I do not think that either. 

ANACREON. 

Who does, of himself? Yet poetry and the degrees of it 
are just as difficult to mark and circumscribe, as love and 
beauty. 

POLYCRATES. 

Madman ! 

ANACREON. 

All are madmen who first draw out hidden truths. 

POLYCRATES. 

You are envious of Hylactor, because on that day I had 



5 I VNACREON AND POLYCRATES. 

given him a magnificent dress, resembling those of the 
Agathyrsi. 

ANACREON. 

I can go naked at my own expense. I would envy him (if 
it gave me no trouble) his lively fancy, his convivial fun, and 
his power to live in a crowd, which 1 can do no longer than a 
trout can in the grass. What I envied on that day, I had. 
When with eyes turned upward to you, modestly and reve- 
rentially, he entreated the possession of the beechen bowl out 
of which you had taken one draught, I, with like humility of 
gesture and similar tone of voice, requested I might be 
possessor of the barrel out of which you had taken but one. 
The people were silent at his request ; they were rapturous at 
mine : one excepted. 

POLYCRATES. 

And what said he ? 

ANACREON. 

"By Bacchus \" he exclaimed, "I thought sycophants were 
the most impudent people in the world : but, Anacreon, verily 
thou surpassest them : thou puttest them out of countenance, 
out of breath, man V 3 

Your liberality was, as usual, enough for us ; and, if Envy 
must come in, she must sit between us. Eeally the dress, 
coarse as it was, that you gave Placoeis, the associate of 
Hylactor, would have covered Tityus : nay, would have made 
winding-sheets, and ample ones, for all the giants, if indeed 
their mother Earth enwrapt their bones in any. Meditating 
the present of such another investiture, you must surprise or 
scale Miletus ; for if, in addition to the sheep of Samos, the 
cows and oxen, the horses and swine, the goats and dogs, 
were woolly, the fleeces of ten years would be insufficient. As 
Placoeis moved on, there were exclamations of wonder on all 
sides, at all distances. "Another *Epeiis must have made 
that pageant ! " was the cry : and many were trodden under 
foot from wishing to obtain a sight of the rollers. His heat, 
like the sun's, increased as he procedecl ; and those who kept 
egg-stalls and fish-stalls cursed him and removed them. 

POLYCRATES. 

We will feast again no less magnificently when I return 
from my victory on the continent. There are delicate perfumes 
and generous wines and beautiful robes at Sardis. 

* Framer of the Trojan Horse. 



XERXES AND ARTABANUS. 55 



XERXES AND ARTABANUS. 



ARTABAXUS. 

Many nations, Xerxes, have risen higher in power, but 
no nation rose ever to the same elevation in glory as the 
Greek. 

XERXES. 

For which reason, were there no other, I would destroy it ; 
then all the glory this troublesome people have acquired will 
fall unto me in addition to my own. 

ARTABANUS. 

The territory, yes ; the glory, no. The solid earth may 
yield to the mighty : one particle of glory is never to be 
detacht from the acquirer and possessor. 

XERXES. 

Artabanus ! Artabanus ! thou speakest more like an Athenian 
than a Persian. If thou forgettest thy country, remember at 
least thy race. 

ARTABAXUS. 

I owe duty and obedience to my King ; I owe truth both 
to King and country. Years have brought me experience. 



And timidity. 
Yes, before God. 



ARTABAXUS. 



XERXES. 

And not before the monarch ? 

ARTABAXUS. 

My last word said it. 

XERXES. 

I too am pious ; yea, even more devout than thou. Was 
there ever such a sacrifice as that of the thousand beeves, 
which on the Mount of llion I offered up in supplication to 
Athene? I think it impossible the gods of Hellas should 
refuse me victory over such outcasts and barbarians in return 
for a thousand head of cattle. Never was above a tenth of 
the number offered up to them before. Indeed, I doubt 



56 XERXES AND ARTABANUS. 

whether a tenth of that tenth come not nearer to the amount : 
for the Greeks are great boasters, and, in their exceeding 
cleverness and roguery, would chuckle at cheating the 
eagerly expectant and closely observant gods. "What sayest 
thou? 

ARTABANUS. 

About the Greeks 1 can say nothing to the contrary : but 
about the gods a question is open. Are they more vigorous, 
active, and vigilant, for the thousand beeves ? Certain it is 
that every Mede and Persian in the army would have improved 
in condition after feasting on them : as they might all have 
done for many days. 

XERXES. 

But their feasting or fasting could have no influence on 
the gods, who, according to their humour at the hour, might 
either laugh or scowl at them. 

ARTABANUS. 

I know not the will of Him above ; for there is only one ; 
as our fathers and those before them have taught us. Ignorant 
Greeks, when they see the chariot of his representative drawn 
before thee by white horses, call him Zeus. 

XERXES. 

Mithra, the sun, we venerate. 

ARTABANUS. 

Mithra we call the object of our worship. One sits above 
the sun, observes it, watches it, and replenishes it perpetually 
with his own light to guide the walk of the seasons. He 
gives the sun its beauty, its strength, its animation. 

XERXES. 

I worship him devoutly. But if one God can do us good, 
fifty can do us more, aided by demigods and heroes. 

ARTABANUS. 

Could fifty lamps in a royal chamber add light to it when 
open to the meridian ? 

XERXES. 

No doubt they could. 

ARTABANUS. 

Are they wanted ? 

XERXES. 

Perhaps not. They must be, even there, if the sun should 
go behind a cloud. 



XERXES AND ARTABANUS. 57 

ARTABAXUS. 

God avert the omen ! 

XERXES. 

I have better omens in abundance. I am confident, I am 
certain of success. The more powerful and the more noble of 
the Greeks, the Athenians, Spartans, Thessalians, are with me, 
or ready to join me. 

ARTABANUS. 

How many of them, fugitives from their country, or traitors 
to it, can be trusted ? 

XERXES. 

The Alenadai from Larissa, country of Achilles, whose 
sepulchral mound we visited, offer me their submission and 
the strongholds on the borders of their territory. The 
descendants of Pisistratus, with the King of Sparta, are under 
my protection, and obedient to my will. They who have 
been stript of power, lawful or unlawful, are always the most 
implacable enemies of their country. Whether they return to 
it by force or by treachery, or by persuasion and the fickleness 
of the people, they rule with rigour. Ashamed of complicity 
and cowardice, the rabble, the soldiery, the priests, the nobles, 
hail them with acclamations, and wait only to raise louder, until 
his death, natural or violent (but violent and natural are here 
the same), shall deliver them again from their bondage. Then 
cometh my hand afresh over the people and draweth it gently 
back unto me. Resistance is vain. Have I not commanded 
the refractory and insolent sea to be scourged ? and not for 
disobeying my orders, which it never dared, but in my absence 
for destroying my bridge. The sentence hath already been 
carried into execution. Never more in my proximity and 
to my detriment will it presume to be tumultuous and 
insurgent. 

ARTABAXUS. 

O King ! thy power is awful, is irresistible ;* but can the 
waves feel? 

XERXES. 

Mutineers can ; and these waves were mutineers. They hiss 
and roar and foam, and swell and sink down again ; and never 
are quiet. This, O Artabanus, is so like undisciplined men, 
that it appears to me they also may feel. Whether they do or 

* Dead men, it is said, have been whipt under the Tzar Nicholas ; 
but they were alive and hale when the whipping began. 



58 XEEXES AND AIITABANUS. 

not, terror is stricken into the hearts of the beholders. No 
exertion of superior power but works upon the senses of man- 
kind. Men are always the most obedient to, and follow the 
most vociferously, those who can and who do chastise, whether 
them or others. A trifle of benefit, bestowed on them after- 
ward, drops like balm into the wound : but balm the most 
precious and the most sanitary drops insensibly on an un- 
wounded part. Behold ! here come into my presence, to be 
reviewed at my leisure, the silver shields. To what perfect 
discipline have I brought my army ! Its armature is either 
the admiration or the terror of the universe. What sayest 
thou ? 

ARTABANUS. 

Certainly our Median and Persian cavalry is excellent. In 
regard to the armature, which former kings and generals 
devised, I entreat the liberty to remark, that its brightness 
and gorgeousness are better adapted to attract the fancies of 
women and boys, than to strike terror into martial men. 

XERXES. 

Look thou again, if thine eyes can endure the splendour, 
look thou again at my body-guard, and at their silver shields, 
and at their spears with golden pomegranates at the 
nearer end. 

ARTABANUS. 

Permit me to inquire, of what utility are these golden 
pomegranates ? They stick not into the ground, which some- 
times is needful ; they are injurious to the arm in grasping, 
more injurious in evolution, and may sometimes be handles 
for the enemy. Metal breast-plates, metal corselets, metal 
shields, silver or brass, are unwieldy and wearisome, not only 
by the weight but by the heat, especially at that season of the 
year when armies are most in activity. 

XERXES. 

What woiddst thou have ? What wouldst thou suggest ? 

ARTABANUS. 

I would have neither horse-hair nor plumage, nor other 
ornament, on the helmet, which are inconvenient to the soldier, 
but are convenient to the enemy. Helmets, alike for cavalry 
and infantry, should in form be conical, or shaped as the keel 
of a ship. In either case, a stroke of the sword, descending 
on it, would more probably glance off, without inflicting a 



XERXES AND AUTABANUS. 59 

wound. But I would render them less heavy, and less subject 
to the influence of heat and cold. 

XERXES. 

Impossible ! How ? 

ABTABANUS. 

There are materials. Cork, two fingers breadth in thickness, 
covered with well-seasoned, strained, and levigated leather, 
would serve the purpose both for helmet and corselet, and 
often turn aside, often resist, both sword and spear. 

XERXES. 

My younger soldiers, especially the officers, would take little 
pride in such equipment. 

ARTABAXU3. 

The pride of the officer ought to be in the efficiency and 
comfort of the soldier. Latterly I have been grieved to see 
vain and idle young persons introduce alterations, which wiser 
men laugh at, and by which the enemy only, and their tailor, 
can profit. We should be more efficient if we were less 
decorative. 

XERXES. 

Efficient ! what can excell us ? 

ARTABANUS. 

Ah my King ! Our ancestors have excelled their ancestors 
in various improvements and inventions : our children may 
excell us. Where is that beyond which there is nothing? 
Great would be our calamity, for great our disgrace and shame, 
if barbarians, in any action, however slight and partial, should 
discomfit the smallest part of our armies. And there are 
barbarians whose bodies are more active, whose vigilance more 
incessant, whose abstinence more enduring, and whose armour 
is less impedimental, than ours. I blush at some of our 
bravest and best generals giving way so easily to fantas- 
tical and inexperienced idlers, who never saw a battle even 
from a balcony or a tower. Who is he that would not 
respect and venerate grey hairs ? but, seeing such dereliction 
of dignity, such relaxation of duty, such unworthy subserviency, 
who can ? Every soldier should be able to swim, and should 
have every facility for doing it. Corselets of the form I 
described, would enable whole bodies of troops to cross broad 
and deep rivers, and would save a great number of pontoons, 
and their carriages, and their bullocks. No shield would be 



CO XEKXES AND AUTABANUS. 

necessary; so that every soldier, Mede and Persian, would 
have one hand the more out of two. Let the barbarous 
nations in our service use only their own weapons ; it is inex- 
pedient and dangerous to instruct them in better. 

XERXES. 

There is somewhat of wisdom, but not much, Artabanus, 
in thy suggestions ; had there been more, the notions would 
first have occurred to me. But with the arms which our 
men already bear we are perfectly a match for the Greeks, who, 
seeing our numbers, will fly. 

ARTABANUS. 

Whither ? Prom one enemy to another ? Believe me, sir, 
neither Athenian nor Spartan will ever fly. If he loses this 
one battle, he loses life or freedom ; and he knows it. 

XERXES. 

I would slay only the armed. The women and children I 
would in part divide among the bravest of my army, and in 
part I would settle on the barren localities of my dominions, 
whereof there are many. 

ARTABANUS. 

Humanely and royally spoken : but did it never once occur 
to an observer so sagacious, that thousands and tens of 
thousands, in your innumerable host, would gladly occupy and 
cultivate those desert places, in which an Athenian would pine 
away ? Immense tracts of your dominions are scantily inhabited. 
Two million men are taken from agriculture and other works 
of industry, of whom probably a third would have married, 
another third would have had children born unto them from 
the wives they left behind : of these thousands and tens of 
thousands God only knows how many may return. Not only 
losses are certain ; but wide fields must lie uncultivated, much 
cattle be the prey of wild beasts throughout the empire, and 
more of worse depredators, who never fear the law, but always 
the battle, and who skulk behind and hide themselves, to fall 
upon what unprotected property has been left by braver men. 
Unless our victory and our return be speedy, your providence 
in collecting stores, during three entire years, will have been 
vain. Already the greater part (four-fifths at the lowest com- 
putation) hath been consumed. Attica and Sparta could not 
supply a sufficiency for two millions of men additional, and three 
hundred thousand horses, two months. Provender will soon 



XERXES AND AllTABAXUS. 61 

be wanting for the sustenance of their own few cattle : summer 
heats have commenced; autumn is distant, and unpromising. 

XERXES. 

Disaffection ! disaffection ! Artabanus, beware ! I love 
my father's brother; but not even my father's brother shall 
breathe despondency or disquietude into my breast. Well do 
I remember thy counsel against this expedition. 

ARTABAXUS. 

Thou thyself for awhile, king, and before I gave my 
counsel, didst doubt and hesitate. 



The holy Dream enlightened me : and thou also wert forced 
to acknowledge the visitation of the same. Awful and super- 
human was the Apparition. Never had I believed that even a 
Deity would threaten Xerxes. A second time, when I had 
begun again to doubt and hesitate, it appeared before me ; the 
same stately figure, the same menacing attitude, nearer and 
nearer. Thou wilt acknowledge, Artabanus, that in this 
guise, or one more terrible, he came likewise unto thee. 

ARTABAXUS. 

Commanded by my king to enter his chamber and to sleep 
in his bed, I did so. Discourse on the invasion of Greece 
had animated some at supper, and deprest others, "Wine 
was poured freely into the cups equally of these and of those. 
Mardonius, educated by the wisest of the Mages, and beloved 
by all of them, was long in conference with his old preceptor. 
Toward the close they were there alone. "Wearied, and fearful 
of offending, I retired, and left them together. The royal 
bedchamber had many tapers in various parts of it : by 
degrees they grew more and more dim, breathing forth such 
odours as royalty alone is privileged to inhale. Slumber came 
over me ; heavy sleep succeeded. 



It was thus with me, the first night and the second. 
Mardonius would never have persuaded me, had dreams and 
visions been less constant and less urgent. ' What pious man 
ought to resist them? Nevertheless, I am stil surrounded 
and trammelled by perplexities. 



^2 XERXES AND ARTABANUS. 

ARTABANUS. 

The powerful, the generous, the confiding, always are; kings 
especially. 

XERXES. 

Mardonius, I begin to suspect, is desirous of conquering 
Greece principally in order to become satrap of that country. 

ARTABANUS. 

He is young ; he may be and ought to be ambitious, but I 
believe him to be loyal. 

XERXES. 

Artabanus ! thou art the only one about me who never 
spoke ill, or hinted it, of another. 

ARTABANUS. 

I have never walkt in the path of evil-doers, and know 
them not. 

XERXES. 

Fortunate am I that a man so wise and virtuous hath come 
over to my opinion. The Vision was irresistible. 

ARTABANUS. 

It confirmed, not indeed my opinion, but the words formerly 
told me by a Mage now departed. 

XERXES. 

What words? Did he likewise foresee and foretell my 
conquest of Hellas ? 

ARTABANUS. 

I know not whether he foresaw it : certainly he never fore- 
told it unto me, But wishing to impress on my tender mind 
(for I was then about the age of puberty) the power apper- 
taining to the Mages, he declared to me, among other wonders, 
that the higher of them could induce sleep, of long continuance 
and profound, by a movement of the hand; could make the 
sleeper utter his inmost thoughts ; could inspire joy or terror, 
love or hatred ; could bring remote things and remote persons 
near, even the future, even the dead. Is it impossible that the 
Dream was one of them ? 

XERXES. 

I am quite lost in the darkness of wonder ; for never hast 
thou been known to utter an untruth, or a truth disparaging 
to the Mages. Their wisdom is unfathomable ; their know- 
ledge is unbounded by the visible world in which we live : 



XERXES AND AUTABAKUS. bo 

their empire is vast even as mine. But take heed : who 
knows but the gods themselves are creatures of their hands ! 
My hair raises up my diadem at the awful thought. 

ARTABAXUS. 

The just man, Xerxes, walks humbly in the presence of 
his God, but walks fearlessly. Deities of many nations are 
within thy tents; and each of them is thought the most 
powerful, the only true one, by his worshiper. Some, it is 
reported, are jealous : if so, the worshiper is, or may be, better 
than they are. The courts and pavilions of others are repre- 
sented by their hymners as filled with coals and smoke, and 
with chariots and instruments of slaughter. These are the 
Deities of secluded regions and gloomy imaginations. We are 
now amid a people of more lively and more genial faith. 

XERXES. 

I think their gods are easy to propitiate, and worth pro- 
pitiating. The same singer who celebrated the valour of 
Achilles, hath described in another poem the residence of these 
gods; where they lead quiet lives above the winds and 
tempests ; where frost never binds the pure illimitable expanse ; 
where snow never whirls around; where lightning never 
quivers ; but temperate warmth and clearest light are evermore 
about them. 

Such is the description which the sons of Hipparchus have 
translated for my amusement from the singer. 

ARTABAXUS. 

Whatever be the quarrels in the various tents, extending 
many and many parasangs in every direction, there is no 
quarrel or disturbance about the objects of veneration. 
Barbarous are many of the nations under thee, but none 
so barbarous.- There may be such across the Danube and 
across the Adriatic ; old regions of fable ; countries where there 
are Lsestrigons and Cyclopses, and men turned into swine; 
there may be amid the wastes of Scythia, where Gryphons are 
reported to guard day and night treasures of gold buried deep 
under the rocks, and to feed insatiably on human blood and 
marrow; but none, happy king, within the regions, inter- 
minable as they are, under the beneficent sway of thy sceptre. 

XERXES. 

The huntsman knows how to treat dogs that quarrel in the 



64 , PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 

kennel ; moreover lie perceives the first symptoms of the rabid, 
and his arrow is upon the string. 

Ancient times and modern have seen annihilated two great armies ; the 
greatest of each ; that of Xerxes and that of Napoleon. Xerxes was neither 
the more ambitious of these invaders nor the more powerful, but greatly 
the more provident. Three years together he had been storing magazines 
in readiness for his expedition, and had collected fresh provisions in 
abundance on his march. Napoleon marcht where none had been or could 
be collected, instead of taking the road by Danzic, in which fortress were 
ample stores for his whole army until it should reach Petersburg by the 
coast. No hostile fleet could intercept such vessels as would convey both 
grain and munition. The nobility of Moscow would have rejoiced at the 
destruction of a superseding city, become the seat of empire. Whether 
winter came on ten days earlier or later, snow was sure to blockade and 
famish the army in Moscow ; the importation of provisions (had sufficiency 
existed within reach) and the march northward, were equally impracticable. 
Napoleon left behind him a signal example that strategy is only a 
constituent part of a commander. In his Russian campaign even this was 
wanting. Xerxes lost his army not so totally as Napoleon lost his : 
Xerxes in great measure by the valour and skill of his enemy ; Napoleon 
by his own imprudence. The faith of Xerxes was in his Dream, Napoleon's 
in his Star : the Dream was illusory, the Star a falling one. 



PEEICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 



Sophocles ! is there in the world a city so beautiful as 
Athens ? Congratulate me ; embrace me ; the Pirseus and the 
Pcecile are completed this day ; * my glory is accomplished ; 
behold it founded on the supremacy of our fellow-citizens. 



SOPHOCLES. 



And it arises, Pericles, the more majestically from the 
rich and delightful plain of equal laws. The gods have 
bestowed on our statuaries and painters a mighty power, 
enabling them to restore our ancestors unto us, some in the 
calm of thought, others in the tumult of battle, and to present 
them before our children when we are gone. 

* Their decorations only ; for the structures were finished before. The 
propylea of Pericles were entrances to the citadel : other works of con- 
summate beauty were erected as ornaments to the city, but chiefly in the 
Pcecile, where also was seen the Temple of Cybele, with her statue by 
Phidias. 



PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 65 



Shall it be so ? Alas, how worthless an incumbrance, how 
wearisome an impediment is life, if it separate us from the 
better of our ancestors, not in our existence only, but in our 
merit ! We are little by being seen among men ; because 
that phasis of us only is visible which is exposed toward them 
and which most resembles them : we become greater by 
leaving the world, as the sun appears to be on descending 
below T the horizon. Strange reflection ! humiliating truth ! 
that nothing on earth, no exertion, no endowment, can do so 
much for us as a distant day. And deep indeed, Sophocles, 
must be the impression made upon thy mind by these masterly 
works of art, if they annihilate in a manner the living ; if they 
lower in thee that spirit which hath often aroused by one 
touch, or rather flash, the whole Athenian people at thy 
tragedies, and force upon thee the cold and ungenial belief, 
the last which it appears to be their nature to inculcate, that 
while our children are in existence it can cease to be among 
them. 

SOPHOCLES. 

I am only the interpreter of the heroes and divinities who 
are looking down on me. When I survey them I remember 
their actions, and when I depart from them I visit the regions 
they illustrated. 

Neither the goddesses on Ida nor the gods before Troy 
were such rivals as our artists. iEschylus hath surpassed 
me:* I must excell iEschylus. Pericles, thou conjurest up 
Discontent from the bosom of Delight, and givest her an 
elevation of mien and character she never knew before : thou 
makest every man greater than his competitor, and not in his 
own eyes but in another's. We want historians: thy eloquence 
will form the style, thy administration will supply the materials. 
Beware, my friend, lest the people hereafter be too proud of 
their city, and imagine that to have been born in Athens is 
enough. 

* Sophocles gained the first prize for which he contended with iEschylus, 
and was conscious that he had not yet deserved the superiority, which 
enthusiasm on the one side and jealousy on the other -are always ready 
to grant a vigorous young competitor. The character of Sophocles was 
frank and liberal, as was remarkably proved on the death of his last rival, 
Euripides. 



66 PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 



And this indeed were hardly more irrational, than the pride 
which cities take sometimes in the accident of a man's birth 
within their walls, of a citizen's whose experience was acquired, 
whose virtues were fostered, and perhaps whose services were 
performed, elsewhere. 

SOPHOCLES. 

They are proud of having been the cradles of great men, 
then only when great men can be no longer an incumbrance or 
a reproach to them. Let them rather boast of those who 
spend the last day in them than the first; this is always 
accidental, that is generally by choice ; for, from something 
like instinct, we wish to close our eyes upon the world in the 
places we love best, the child in its mother's bosom, the 
patriot in his country. When we are born we are the same 
as others : at our decease we may induce our friends, and 
oblige our enemies, to acknowledge that others are not the 
same as we. It is folly to say, Death levels the whole human 
race : for it is only when he hath stripped men of everything 
external, that their deformities can be clearly discovered or 
their worth correctly ascertained. Gratitude is soon silent; a 
little while longer and Ingratitude is tired, is satisfied, is 
exhausted, or sleeps. Lastly fly off the fumes of party-spirit ; 
the hottest and most putrid ebullition of self-love. We then 
see before us and contemplate calmly the creator of our 
customs, the ruler of our passions, the arbiter of our pleasures, 
and, under the gods, the disposer of our destiny. What 
then, I pray thee, is there dead ? Nothing more than that 
which we can handle, cast down, bury; and surely not he 
who is yet to progenerate a more numerous and far better 
race, than during the few years it was permitted us to converse 
with him. 

PERICLES. 

When I reflect on Themistocles, on Aristides, and on the 
greatest of mortal men, Miltiades, I wonder how their 
countrymen can repeat their names, unless in performing the 
office of expiation.* 

* There are some who may deem this reflection unsuitable to Pericles. 
He saw injustice in others, and hated it : yet he caused the banishment of 
Cimon, as great a man as any of the three. It is true he had afterward 
the glory of proposing and of carrying to Sparta the decree of his recall. 



PEUICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 67 

SOPHOCLES. 

Cities are ignorant that nothing is more disgraceful to them 
than to be the birth-places of the illustriously good, and not 
afterward the places of their residence ; that their dignity 
consists in adorning them with distinctions, in entrusting to 
them the regulation of the commonwealth, and not in having 
sold a crust or cordial to the nurse or midwife. 



Zeus and Pallas ! grant a right mind to the Athenians ! 
If, throughout so many and such eventful ages, they have^ 
been found by you deserving of their freedom, render them 
more and more worthy of the great blessing you bestowed on 
them ! May the valour of our children defend this mole for 
ever; and constantly may their patriotism increase and 
strengthen among these glorious reminiscences ! Shield them 
from the jealousy of surrounding states, from the ferocity of 
barbarian kings, and from the perfidy of those who profess the 
same religion ! Teach them that between the despot and the 
free all compact is a cable of sand, and every alliance unholy ! 
And, O givers of power and wisdom ! remove from them the 
worst and wildest of illusions, that happiness, liberty, virtue, 
genius, will be fostered or long respected, much less attain 
their just ascendancy, under any other form of government ! 

SOPHOCLES. 

May the gods hear thee, Pericles, as they have always done! 
or may I, reposing in my tomb, never know that they have 
not heard thee ! 

1 smile on imagining how trivial would thy patriotism and 
ideas of government appear to Chloros. And indeed much 
wiser men, from the prejudices of habit and education, have 
undervalued them, preferring the dead quiet of their wintry 
hives to our breezy spring of life and busy summer. The 

Let us contemplate the brighter side of his character, his eloquence, his 
wit, his clemency, his judgment, his firmness, his regularity, his decorous- 
ness, his domesticity ; let us then unite him with his predecessor, and 
acknowledge that such illustrious rivals never met before or since, in 
enmity or in friendship. Could the piety attributed to Pericles have 
belonged to a scholar of Anaxagoras? Eloquent men often talk like 
religious men : and where should the eloquence of Pericles be more 
inflamed by enthusiasm than in the midst of his propylaea, at the side of 
Sophocles, and before the gods of Phidias 1 

f2 



68 PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 

countries of the vine and olive are more subject to hailstorms 
than the regions of the north : yet is it not better that some 
of the fruit should fall than that none should ripen ? 



Quit these creatures ; let them lie warm and slumber; they 
are all they ought to be, all they can be. But prythee who is 
Chloros, that he should deserve to be named by Sophocles ? 

SOPHOCLES. 

He was born somewhere on the opposite coast of Eubcea, 
and sold as a slave in Persia to a man who dealt largely in 
that traffic, and who also had made a fortune by displaying to 
the public four remarkable proofs of ability : first, by swallow- 
ing at a draught an amphora of the strongest wine ; secondly, 
by standing up erect and modulating his voice like a sober 
man when he was drunk ; thirdly, by acting to perfection like 
a drunken man when he was sober ; and fourthly, by a most 
surprising trick indeed, which it is reported he learnt in 
Babylonia : one would have sworn he had a blazing fire in his 
mouth ; take it out, and it is nothing but a lump of ice. The 
king, before whom he was admitted to play his tricks, hated 
him at first, and told him that the last conjuror had made him 
cautious of such people, he having been detected in filching 
from the royal tiara one of the weightiest jewels : but talents 
forced their way. As for Chloros, I mention him by the 
name under which I knew him ; he has changed it since ; for 
although the dirt wherewith it was encrusted kept him com- 
fortable at first, when it cracked and began to crumble it was 
incommodious. 

The barbarians have commenced, I understand, to furbish 
their professions and vocations with rather whimsical skirts 
and linings : thus for instance a chessplayer is lion-hearted 
and worshipful ; a drunkard is serenity and highness; a hunter 
of fox, badger, polecat, fitchew, and weazel, is excellency and 
right honourable ; while, such is the delicacy of distinction, a 
rat-catcher is considerably less : he however is illustrious, and 
appears, as a tail to a comet, in the train of a legation, holding 
a pen between his teeth to denote his capacity for secretary, 
and leading a terrier in the right hand, and carrying a trap 
baited with cheese and anise-seed in the left. 

It is as creditable among them to lie with dexterity as it is 



PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 69 

common among the Spartans to steal. Chloros, who per- 
formed it with singular frankness and composure, had recently 
a cock's feather mounted on his turban, in place of a hen's, 
and the people was commanded to address him by the title of 
most noble. His brother Alexaretes was employed at a stipend 
of four talents to detect an adultress in one among the royal 
wives: he gave no intelligence in the course of several months: 
the king on his return cried angrily, " What hast thou been 
doing? hast thou never found her out?" He answered, 
" Thy servant, king, hath been doing more than finding out 
an adultress : he hath, king, been making one." 



I have heard the story with this difference, that the bed- 
ambassador being as scantily gifted with facetiousness as with 
perspicacity, the reply was framed satirically by some other 
courtier, who, imitating his impudence, had forgotten his 
dulness. But about the reward of falsehood, that is wonderful, 
when we read that formerly the Persians were occupied many 
years in the sole study of truth. 

SOPHOCLES. 

How difficult then must they have found it ! Xo wonder 
they left it off the first moment they could conveniently. The 
grandfather of Chloros was honest : he carried a pack upon 
his shoulders, in which pack were contained the coarser linens 
of Caria : these he retailed among the villages of Asia and 
Greece, but principally in the ilands. He died : on the 
rumour of war the son and grandson, then an infant, fled : the 
rest is told. In Persia no man inquires how another comes 
to wealth or power, the suddenness of which appears to be 
effected by some of the demons or genii of their songs and 
stories. Chloros grew rich, was emancipated from slavery, 
and bought several slaves himself. One of these was excess- 
ively rude and insolent to me : I had none near enough to 
chastise him, so that I requested of his master, by a friend, to 
admonish and correct him at his leisure. My friend informs 
me that Chloros, crossing his legs, and drawing his cock's 
feather through the thumb and finger, asked languidly who I 
was, and receiving the answer, said, " I am surprised at his 
impudence : Pericles himself could have demanded nothing 
more." My friend remarked that Sophocles was no less 



70 PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 

sensible of an affront than Pericles. " True/' replied he, 
" but he has not the power of expressing his sense of it quite 
so strongly. Tor an affront to Pericles, who could dreadfully 
hurt me, I would have imprisoned my whole gang, whipt 
them with wires, mutilated them, turned their bodies into 
safes for bread and water, or cooled their prurient tongues 
with hemlock : but no slave shall ever shrug a shoulder the 
sorer or eat a leek the less for Sophocles." 

PERICLES. 

The ideas of such a man on government must be curious : I 
am persuaded he would prefer the Persian to any. I forgot to 
mention that, according to what I hear this morning, the great 
king has forbidden strange ships to sail within thirty parasangs 
of his coasts, and has claimed the dominion of half ours. 

SOPHOCLES. 

Where is the scourge with which Xerxes lashed the ocean ? 
Were it not better laid on the back of a madman than placed 
within his hand ? 

PERICLES. 

It hath been observed by those who look deeply into the 
history of physics, that all royal families become at last insane. 
Immoderate power, like other intemperance, leaves the progeny 
weaker and weaker, until JXature, as in compassion, covers it 
with her mantle and it is seen no more, or until the arm of 
indignant man sweeps it from before him. 

We must ere lon^ excite the other barbarians to invade the 
territories of this, and before the cement of his new acquisitions 
shall have hardened. Large conquests break readily off from 
an empire by their weight, while smaller stick fast. A wide 
and rather waste kingdom should be interposed between the 
policied states and Persia, by the leave of Chloros. Perhaps 
he would rather, in his benevolence, unite us with the great and 
happy family of his master. Despots are wholesale dealers in 
equality; and, father Zeus ! was ever equality like this ? 

SOPHOCLES. 

My dear Pericles ! . . do excuse a smile . . is not that the best 
government which, whatever be the form of it, we ourselves are 
called upon to administer ? 

PERICLES. 

The Piraeus and the Poecile have a voice of their own 



PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 71 

wherewith to answer thee, Sophocles ! and the Athenians, 
exempt from war, famine, tax, debt, exile, fine, imprisonment, 
delivered from monarchy, from oligarchy, and from anarchy, 
walking along their porticoes, inhaling their sea-breezes, 
crowning their gods daily for fresh blessings, and their 
children for deserving them, reply to this voice by the sym- 
phony of their applause. Hark ! my words are not idle. 
Hither come the youths and virgins, the sires and matrons ; 
hither come citizen and soldier . . 

SOPHOCLES. 

A solecism from Pericles ! Has the most eloquent of men 
forgotten the Attic language ? has he forgotten the language 
of all Greece ? Can the father of his country be ignorant 
that he should have said hither comes ? for citizen and soldier 
is one. 

PERICLES. 

The fault is graver than the reproof, or indeed than simple 
incorrectness of language : my eyes misled my tongue : a large 
portion of the citizens is armed. 

what an odour of thyme and bay and myrtle, and from 
what a distance, bruised by the procession ! 

SOPHOCLES. 

What regular and full harmony ! What a splendour and 
effulgence of white dresses ! painful to aged eyes and dangerous 
to young. 

PERICLES. 

1 can distinguish many voices from among others. Some of 
them have blessed me for defending their innocence before the 
judges ; some for exhorting Greece to unanimity ; some for my 
choice of friends. Ah surely those sing sweetest ! those are 
the voices, Sophocles ! that shake my heart with tenderness, 
a tenderness passing love, and excite it above the trumpet and 
the cymbal. Return we to the gods : the crowd is waving the 
branches of olive, calling us by name, and closing to salute us. 

SOPHOCLES. 

citadel of Pallas, more than all other citadels may the 
Goddess of wisdom and of war protect thee ! and never may 
strange tongue be heard within thy walls, unless from captive 
king ! 

Live Pericles ! and inspire into thy people the soul that 
once animated these heroes round us. 



72 PERICLES AND SOPHOCLES. 

Hail, men of Athens! Pass onward ; leave me ; I follow. Go; 
behold the Cods, the Demigods, and Pericles ! 

Artemicloros ! come to my right. No : better walk between 
us ; else they who run past may knock the flute out of your 
hand, or push it every now and then from the lip ! Have you 
received the verses I sent you in the morning ? soon enough 
to learn the accents and cadences ? 

ARTEMIDOROS. 

Actaios brought them to me about sunrise ; and I raised 
myself up in bed to practise them, while he sat on the edge of 
it, shaking the dust off his sandals all over the chamber, by 
beating time. 

SOPHOCLES. 

Begin w r e. 

The colours of thy waves are not the same 

Day after day, Poseidon ] nor the same 

The fortunes of the land wherefrom arose 

Under thy trident the brave friend of man. 

Wails have been heard from women, sterner breasts 

Have sounded with the desperate pang of grief, 

Gray hairs have strown these rocks : here iEgeus cried, 

" Sun ! careering over Sipylos, 
If desolation (worse than ever there 
Befell the mother, and those heads her own 
Would shelter when the deadly darts flew round) 
Impend not o'er my house in gloom so long, 
Let one swift cloud illumined by thy chariot 
Sweep off the darkness from that doubtful sail." 

Deeper and deeper came the darkness down ; 
The sail itself was heard ; his eyes grew dim ; 
His knees tottered beneatb him, but availed 
To bear him til he plunged into the deep. 

Sound, fifes ! there is a youihfulness of sound 
In your shrill voices : sound again, ye lips 
That Mars delights in. I will look no more 
Into the time behind for idle goads 
To stimulate faint fancies : hope itself 
Is bounded by the starry zone of glory. 
On one bright point we gaze, one wish we breathe, 

Athens ! be ever as thou art this hour, 
Happy and strong, a Pericles thy guide. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 73 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 



DIOGENES. 

Stop ! stop ! come hither ! Why lookest thou so scornfully 
arid askance upon me ? 

PLATO. 

Let me go ; loose me ; I am resolved to pass. 

DIOGENES. 

Nay then, by Jupiter and this tub ! thou leavest three 
good ells of Milesian cloth behind thee. Whither wouldst 
thou amble ? 

PLATO. 

I am not obliged in courtesy to tell you. 

DIOGENES. 

Upon whose errand ? Answer me directly. 

PLATO. 

Upon my own. 

DIOGENES. 

! then I will hold thee yet awhile. If it were upon 
another's, it might be a hardship to a good citizen, though 
not to a good philosopher. 

PLATO. 

That can be no impediment to my release : you do not 
think me one. 

DIOGENES. 

No, by my father Jove ! 

PLATO. 

Your father ! 

DIOGENES. 

Why not ? Thou shouldst be the last man to doubt it. 
Hast not thou declared it irrational to refuse our belief to 
those who assert that they are begotten by the gods, though 
the assertion (these are thy words) be unfounded on reason or 
probability ? In me there is a chance of it.: wheras in the 
generation of such people as thou art fondest of frequenting, 
who claim it loudly, there are always too many competitors to 
leave it probable. 



74 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 



Those who speak against the great, do not usually speak 
from morality, but from envy. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou hast a glimpse of the truth in this place ; but as thou 
hast already shown thy ignorance in attempting to prove to 
me what a man is, ill can I expect to learn from thee what is a 
great man. 

PLATO. 

No doubt your experience and intercourse will afford me 
the information. 

DIOGENES. 

Attend, and take it. The great man is he who hath nothing 
to fear and nothing to hope from another. It is he who, 
while he demonstrates the iniquity of the laws, and is able to 
correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on 
the ambitious both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who 
hath no disposition or occasion for any kind of deceit, no 
reason for being or for appearing different from what he is. It 
is he who can call together the most select company when it 
pleases him. 

PLATO. 

Excuse my interruption. In the beginning of your defini- 
tion I fancied that you were designating your own person, as 
most people do in describing what is admirable ; now I find 
that you have some other in contemplation. 

DIOGENES. 

I thank thee for allowing me what perhaps I do possess, but 
what I was not then thinking of; as is often the case with 
rich possessors : in fact, the latter part of the description suits 
me as well as any portion of the former. 

PLATO. 

You may call together the best company, by using your 
hands in the call, as you did with me ; otherwise I am not sure 
that you would succeed in it. 

DIOGENES. 

My thoughts are my company : I can bring them together, 
select them, detain them, dismiss them. Imbecile and vicious 
men can not do any of these things. Their thoughts are 
scattered, vague, uncertain, cumbersome : and the worst stick 



( 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 75 

to them the longest ; many indeed by choice, the greater part 
by necessity, and accompanied, some by weak wishes, others 
by vain remorse. 

PLATO. 

Is there nothing of greatness, Diogenes ! in exhibiting 
how cities and communities may be governed best, how morals 
may be kept the purest, and power become the most stabile ? 



Something of greatness does not constitute the great man. 
Let me however see him who hath done what thou sayest : he 
must be the most universal and the most indefatigable 
traveller, he must also be the oldest creature upon earth. 



How 



so , 



Because he must know perfectly the climate, the soil, the 
situation, the peculiarities, of the races, of their allies, of their 
enemies : he must have sounded their harbours, he must have 
measured the quantity of their arable land and pasture, of 
their woods and mountains : he must have ascertained whether 
there are fisheries on their coasts, and even what winds are 
prevalent.* On these causes, with some others, depend the 
bodily strength, the numbers, the wealth, the wants, the capa- 
cities, of the people. 

PLATO. 

Such are low thoughts. 

DIOGENES. 

The bird of wisdom flies low, and seeks her food under 
hedges : the eagle himself would be starved if he always 
soared aloft and against the sun. The sweetest fruit grows 
near the ground, and the plants that bear it require ventilation 
and lopping. Were this not to be done in thy garden, every 
walk and alley, every plot and border, would be covered with 
runners and roots, with boughs and suckers. We want no 
poets or logicians or metaphysicians to govern us : we want 
practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men, 
fearful to solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never to 
betray one. Experimentalists may be the best philosophers : 

* Parts of knowledge which are now general, but were then very rare, 
and united in none. 



76 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

they are always the worst politicians. Teach people their 
duties, and they will know their interests. Change as little as 
possible, and correct as much. 

Philosophers are absurd from many causes, but principally 
from laying out unthriftily their distinctions. They set up 
four virtues : fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. 
Now a man may be a very bad one, and yet possess three out 
of the four. Every cut-throat must, if he has been a cut- 
throat on many occasions, have more fortitude and more 
prudence than the greater part of those whom we consider as 
the best men. And what cruel wretches, both executioners 
and judges, have been strictly just ! how little have they cared 
what gentleness, what generosity, what genius, their sentence 
hath removed from the earth ! Temperance and beneficence 
contain all other virtues. Take them home, Plato, split them, 
expound them ; do what thou wilt with them, if thou but use 
them. 

Before I gave thee this lesson, which is a better than thou 
ever gavest anyone, and easier to remember, thou wert accusing 
me of invidiousness and malice against those whom thou 
callest the great, meaning to say the powerful. Thy imagina- 
tion, I am well aware, had taken its flight toward Sicily, 
where thou seekest thy great man, as earnestly and undoubt- 
ingly as Ceres sought her Persephone. Paith ! honest Plato, 
I have no reason to envy thy worthy friend Dionysius. Look 
at my nose ! A lad seven or eight years old threw an apple at 
me yesterday, while I was gazing at the clouds, and gave me 
nose enough for two moderate men. Instead of such a god- 
send, what should I have thought of my fortune if, after living 
all my lifetime among golden vases, rougher than my hand 
with their emeralds and rubies, their engravings and emboss- 
ments, among Parian caryatides and porphyry sphinxes, among 
philosophers with rings upon their fingers and linen next their 
skin, and among singing-boys and dancing-girls, * to whom 
alone thou speakest intelligibly. . I ask thee again, what should 
I in reason have thought of my fortune, if, after these facilities 
and superfluities, I had at last been pelted out of my house, 
not by one young rogue, but by thousands of all ages, and not 
with an apple (I wish 1 could say a rotten one) but with 
pebbles and broken pots ; and, to crown my deserts, had been 
compelled to become the teacher of so promising a generation. 
Great men, forsooth ! thou knowest at last who they are. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 77 

PLATO. 

There are great men of various kinds. 

DIOGENES. 

No, by my beard, are there not. 

PLATO. 

What ! are there not great captains, great geometricians, 
great dialecticians ? 

DIOGENES. 

Who denied it ? A great man was the postulate. Try thy 
hand now at the powerful one. 

PLATO, 

On seeing the exercise of power, a child can not doubt who 
is powerful, more or less ; for power is relative. All men are 
weak, not only if compared to the Demiurgos, but if compared 
to the sea or the earth, or certain things upon each of them, 
such as elephants and whales. So placid and tranquil is the 
scene around us, we can hardly bring to mind the images of 
strength and force, the precipices, the abysses. . . 

DIOGENES. 

Prythee hold thy loose tongue, twinkling and glittering Like 
a serpent's in the midst of luxuriance and rankness. Did 
never this reflection of thine warn thee that, in human life, the 
precipices and abysses would be much further from our admi- 
ration, if we were less inconsiderate, selfish, and vile? I will 
not however stop thee long, for thou wert going on quite 
consistently. As thy great men are fighters and wranglers, 
so thy mighty things upon the earth and sea are troublesome 
and intractable incumbrances. Thou perceivedst not what was 
greater in the former case, neither art thou aware what is 
greater in this. Didst thou feel the gentle air that passed us? 

PLATO. 

I did not, just then. 

DIOGENES. 

That air, so gentle, so imperceptible to thee, is more 
powerful not only than all the creatures that breathe and live 
by it ; not only than all the oaks of the forest, which it rears 
in an age and shatters in a moment ; not only than all the 
monsters of the sea, but than the sea itself, which it tosses up 
into foam, and breaks against every rock in its vast circum- 
ference; for it carries in its bosom, with perfect calm and 



78 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

composure, the incontrollable ocean and the peopled earth, like 
an atom of a feather. 

To the world's turmoils and pageantries is attracted, not 
only the admiration of the populace, but the zeal of the 
orator, the enthusiasm of the poet, the investigation of the 
historian, and the contemplation of the philosopher : yet how 
silent and invisible are they in the depths of air ! Do I say 
in those depths and deserts ? No ; I say at the distance of a 
swallow's flight ; at the distance she rises above us, ere a 
sentence brief as this could be uttered. 

What are its mines and mountains ? Fragments wielded up 
and dislocated by the expansion of water from below ; the 
most-part reduced to mud, the rest to splinters. Afterward 
sprang up fire in many places, and again tore and mangled the 
mutilated carcase, and stil growls over it. 

What are its cities and ramparts, and moles and monuments ? 
segments of a fragment, which one man puts together and 
another throws down. Here we stumble upon thy great ones 
at their work. Show me now, if thou canst, in history, three 
great warriors, or three great statesmen, who have acted other- 
wise than spiteful children. 

PLATO. 

I will begin to look for them in history when I have dis- 
covered the same number in the philosophers or the poets. 
A prudent man searches in his own garden after the plant he 
wants, before he casts his eyes over the stalls in Kenkrea or 
Keramicos. 

Returning to your observation on the potency of the air, I 
am not ignorant or unmindful of it. May I venture to express 
my opinion to you, Diogenes, that the earlier discoverers and 
distributers of wisdom, (which wisdom lies among us in ruins 
and remnants, partly distorted and partly concealed by theo- 
logical allegory) meant by Jupiter the air in its agitated state, 
by Juno the air in its quiescent. These are the great agents, 
and therefor called the king and queen of the gods. Jupiter 
is denominated by Homer the compeller of clouds : Juno re- 
ceives them, and remits them in showers to plants and animals. 

I may trust you, 1 hope, Diogenes ! 

DIOGENES. 

Thou mayest lower the gods in my presence, as safely as 
men in the presence of Timon. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 79 

PLATO. 

I would not lower them : I would exalt them. 

DIOGENES. 

More foolish and presumptuous stil ! 

PLATO. 

Fair words, Sinopean ! I protest to you my aim is truth. 

DIOGENES. 

I can not lead thee where of a certainty thou mayest always 
find it ; but I will tell thee what it is. Truth is a point ; the 
subtilest and finest ; harder than adamant • never to be broken, 
worn away, or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is 
sure to hurt those who touch it ; and likely to draw blood, 
perhaps the life-blood, of those who press earnestly upon it. 
Let us away from this narrow lane skirted with hemlock, and 
pursue our road again through the wind and dust, toward the 
great man and the powerful. Him I would call the powerful 
one, who controls the storms of his mind, and turns to good 
account the worst accidents of his fortune. The great man, 
I was going on to demonstrate, is somewhat more. He must 
be able to do this, and he must have an intellect which puts 
into motion the intellect of others. 

PLATO. 

Socrates then was your great man. 

DIOGENES. 

He was indeed ; nor can all thou hast attributed to him 
ever make me think the contrary. I wish he could have kept 
a little more at home, and have thought it as well worth his 
w T hile to converse with his own children as with others. 

PLATO. 

He knew himself born for the benefit of the human race. 

DIOGENES. 

Those who are born for the benefit of the human race, go 
but little into it : those who are born for its curse, are 
crowded. 

PLATO. 

It was requisite to dispell the mists of ignorance and error. 

DIOGENES. 

Has he done it ? What doubt has he elucidated, or what 
fact has he established? Although I was bat twelve years 



80 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

old and resident in another city when he died, I have taken 
some pains in my inquiries about him from persons of less 
vanity and less perverseness than his disciples. He did not 
leave behind him any true philosopher among them ; any 
who followed his mode of argumentation, his subjects of 
disquisition, or his course of life ; any who would subdue the 
malignant passions or coerce the looser; any who would 
abstain from calumny or from cavil ; any who would devote 
his days to the glory of his country, or, what is easier and 
perhaps wiser, to his own well-founded contentment and well- 
merited repose. Xenophon, the best of them, offered up 
sacrifices, believed in oracles, consulted soothsayers, turned 
pale at a jay, and was dysenteric at a magpie. 

PLATO. 

He had then no courage ? I was the first to suspect it. 

DIOGENES. 

Which thou hadst never been if others had not praised him 
for it : but his courage was of so strange a quality, that he 
was ready, if jay or magpie did not cross him, to fight for 
Spartan or Persian. Plato, whom thou esteemest much more, 
and knowest somewhat less, careth as little for portent and 
omen as doth Diogenes. What he would have done for a 
Persian I can not say : certain I am that he would have no 
more fought for a Spartan than he w T ould for his own father : 
yet he mortally hates the man who hath a kinder muse or a 
better milliner, or a seat nearer the minion of a king. So 
much for the two disciples of Socrates who have acquired the 
greatest celebrity ! 

PLATO. 

Why do you attribute to me invidiousness and malignity, 
rather than to the young philosopher who is coming prema- 
turely forward into public notice, and who hath^ lately been 
invited by the King of Macedon to educate his son ? 

DIOGENES. 

These very words of thine demonstrate to me, calm and 
expostulatory as they appear in utterance, that thou enviest in 
this young man, if not his abilities, his appointment. And 
prythee now demonstrate to me as clearly, if thou canst, in 
what he is either a sycophant or a malignant. 



DIOGEXES AND PLATO. 81 



Willingly. 

DIOGENES. 

I believe it. But easily too ? 

PLATO. 

I think so. Knowing the arrogance of Philip, and the signs 
of ambition which his boy (I forget the name) hath exhibited 
so early, he says, in the fourth book of his Ethics (already in 
the hands of several here at Athens, although in its present 
state unfit for publication), that "he who deems himself 
worthy of less than his due, is a man of pusillanimous and 
abject nrind.'' 

DIOGENES. 

His canine tooth, friend Plato, did not enter thy hare's fur 
here. 

PLATO. 

Xo ; he sneered at Phocion, and flattered Philip. He adds, 
" whether that man's merits be great, or small, or middling/' 
And he supports the position by sophistry. 

DIOGENES. 

How could he act more consistently ? Such is the support 
it should rest on. If the man's merits were great, he could 
not be abject. 

PLATO. 

Yet the author was so contented with his observation, that 
he expresses it again a hundred lines below. 

DIOGENES. 

Then he was not contented with his observation ; for, had 
he been contented, he would have said no more about it. But, 
having seen lately his treatise, I remember that he varies the 
expression of the sentiment, and, after saying a very foolish 
thing, is resolved on saying one rather less inconsiderate : on 
the principle of the hunter on the snows of Pindus, who, when 
his fingers are frost-bitten, does not hold them instantly to the 
fire, but dips them first into cold water. Aristoteles says, in 
his second trial at the thesis, "for he who is of low and abject 
mind, strips liimself of what is good about him, and is, to a 
certain degree, bad, because he thinks liimself unworthy of the 
good." 

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs : 
they also make him unfit for brothels : but do they therefor 



82 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

make him bad ? It is not often that your scholar is lost in 
this way, by following the echo of his own voice. His greatest 
fault is, that he so condenses his thoughts as to render it 
difficult to see through them : he inspissates his yellow into 
black. However, I see more and more in him the longer I 
look at him : in you I see less and less. Perhaps other men 
may have eyes of another construction, and filled with a sub tiler 
and more ethereal fluid. 

PLATO. 

Acknowledge at least that it argues a poverty of thought to 
repeat the same sentiment. 

DIOGENES. 

It may or it may not. Whatever of ingenuity or invention 
be displayed in a remark, another may be added which sur- 
passes it. If, after this and perhaps more, the author, in a 
different treatise, or in a different place of the same, throws 
upon it fresh materials, surely you must allow that he rather 
hath brought forward the evidence of plenteousness than of 
poverty. Much of invention may be exhibited in the variety 
of turns and aspects he makes his thesis assume. A poor 
friend may give me to-day a portion of yesterday's repast ; but 
a rich man is likelier to send me what is preferable, forgetting 
that he had sent me as much a day or two before. They who 
give us all we want, and beyond what we expected, may be 
pardoned if they happen to overlook the extent of their 
liberality. In this matter thou hast spoken inconsiderately 
and unwisely : but whether the remark of Aristoteles was 
intended as a slur on Phocion is uncertain. The repetition of 
it makes me incline to think it was ; for few writers repeat a 
kind sentiment, many an unkind one : and Aristoteles would 
have repeated a just observation rather than an unjust, unless 
he wished either to flatter or malign. The gods rarely let us 
take good aim on these occasions, but dazzle or overcloud us. 
The perfumed oil of flattery, and the caustic spirit of malignity, 
spread over an equally wide surface. Here both are thrown 
out of their jars by the same pair of hands at the same 
moment ; the sweet (as usual) on the bad man, the unsweet 
(as universal) on t^e good. I never heard before that they 
had fallen on the hands of Phocion and of Philip. Thou hast 
furnished me with the suspicion, and I have furnished thee 
with the supports for it. Do not, however, hope to triumph 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 83 

oyer Aristoteles because lie hatli said one thoughtless thing : 
rather attempt to triumph with him on saying many wise ones. 
For a philosopher I think him very little of an impostor. He 
mingles too frequently the acute and dull; and thou too 
frequently the sweet and vapid. Try to barter one with the 
other, amicably ; and not to twitch and carp. You may each 
be the better for some exchanges • but neither for cheapening 
one another's wares. Do thou take my advice the first of the 
two; for thou hast the most to gain by it. Let me tell thee 
also that it does him no dishonour to have accepted the invita- 
tion of Philip as future preceptor of his newly-born child. I 
would rather rear a lion's whelp and tame hhn, than see him 
run untamed about the city, especially if any tenement and 
cattle were at its outskirts. Let us hope that a soul once 
Attic can never become Macedonian ■ but rather Macedonian 
than Sicilian. 

Aristoteles, and all the rest of you, must have the wadding 
of straw and saw-dust shaken out, and then we shall know 
pretty nearly your real weight and magnitude. 



A philosopher ought never to speak in such a manner of 
philosophers. 

DIOGENES. 

None other ought, excepting now and then the beadle. 
However, the gods have well protected thee, Plato, against 
his worst violence. Was this raiment of thine the screen of 
an Egyptian temple ? or merely the drapery of a thirty-cubit 
Isis ? or peradventure a holiday suit of Darius for a bevy of 
his younger concubines ? Prythee do tarry with me, or return 
another day, that I may catch a flight of quails with it as they 
cross over this part of Attica. 

PLATO. 

It hath always been the fate of the decorous to be calum- 
niated for effeminacy by the sordid. 



Effeminacy ! By my beard ! he who could carry all this 
Milesian bravery on his shoulders, might, with the help of 
three more such able men, have tost Typhoeus up to the teeth 
of Jupiter. 

G 2 



84 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 



We may serve our country, I hope, with clean faces. 

DIOGENES. 

More serve her with clean faces than with clean hands : and 
some are extremely shy of her when they fancy she may want 
them. 

PLATO. 

Although on some occasions I have left Athens, I can not 
be accused of deserting her in the hour of danger. 

DIOGENES. 

Nor proved to have defended her : but better desert her on 
some occasions, or on all, than praise the tyrant Critias ; the 
cruellest of the thirty who condemned thy master. In one 
hour, in the hour when that friend was dying, when young 
and old were weeping over him, where then wert thou ? 

PLATO. 

Sick at home. 

DIOGENES. 

Sick ! how long ? of what malady ? In such torments, or 
in such debility, that it would have cost thee thy life to have 
been carried to the prison ? or hadst thou no litter ; no slaves 
to bear it ; no footboy to inquire the way to the public prison, 
to the cell of Socrates ? The medicine he took could never 
have made thy heart colder, or thy legs more inactive and 
torpid in their movement toward a friend. Shame upon thee ! 
scorn ! contempt ! everlasting reprobation and abhorrence ! 

PLATO. 

Little did I ever suppose that, in being accused of hard- 
heartedness, Diogenes would exercise the office of accuser. 

DIOGENES. 

Not to press the question, nor to avoid the recrimination, I 
will enter on the subject at large ; and rather ^as an appeal 
than as a disquisition. I am called hard-hearted ; Alcibiades 
is called tender-hearted. Speak I truly or falsely ? 

PLATO. 

Truly. 

DIOGENES. 

In both cases ? 

PLATO. 

In both. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 85 

DIOGENES. 

Pray, in what doth hardness of heart consist ? 

PLATO. 

There are many constituents and indications of it : want of 
sympathy with our species is one. 

DIOGENES. 

I sympathise with the brave in their adversity and afflictions, 
because I feel in my own breast the flame that burns in theirs : 
and I do not sympathise with others, because with others my 
heart hath nothing of consanguinity. I no more sympathise 
with the generality of mankind than I do with fowls, fishes, 
and insects. We have indeed the same figure and the same 
flesh, but not the same soul and spirit. Yet, recall to thy 
memory, if thou canst, any action of mine bringing pain of 
body or mind to any rational creature. True indeed no 
despot or conqueror should exercise his authority a single hour 
if my arm or my exhortations could prevail against him. Nay, 
more : none should depart from the earth without flagellations, 
nor without brands, nor without exposure, day after day, in 
the market-place of the city where he governed. This is the 
only way I know of making men believe in the justice of 
their gods. And if they never were to believe in it at all, it 
is right that they should confide in the equity of their fellow- 
men. Even this were imperfect : for every despot and con- 
queror inflicts much greater misery than any one human body 
can suffer. Now then plainly thou seest the extent of what thou 
wouldst call my cruelty. We who have ragged beards are 
cruel by prescription and acclamation ; while they who have 
pumiced faces and perfumed hair, are called cruel only in the 
moments of tenderness, and in the pauses of irritation. Thy 
friend Alcibiades was extremely good-natured: yet, because 
the people of Melos, descendants from the Lacedaemonians, 
stood neutral in the Peloponnesian war, and refused to fight 
against their fathers, the good-natured man, when he had 
vanquished and led them captive, induced the Athenians to 
slaughter all among them who were able to bear arms : and 
we know that the survivors were kept in irons until the 
victorious Spartans set them free. 



PLATO. 

I did not approve of this severity. 



86 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

DIOGENES. 

Nor didst thou at any time disapprove of it. Of what 
value are all thy philosophy and all thy eloquence, if they fail 
to humanise a bosom-friend, or fear to encounter a misguided 
populace ? 

PLATO. 

I thought I heard Diogenes say he had no sympathy with 
the mass of mankind : what could excite it so suddenly in 
behalf of an enemy ? 

DIOGENES. 

Whoever is wronged is thereby my fellow-creature, although 
he were never so before. Scorn, contumely, chains, unite us. 

PLATO. 

Take heed, O Diogenes ! lest the people of Athens hear 
you. 

DIOGENES. 

Is Diogenes no greater than the people of Athens ? Friend 
Plato ! I take no heed about them. Somebody or something 
will demolish me sooner or later. An Athenian can but begin 
what an ant, or a beetle, or a worm will finish. Any one of 
the three would have the best of it. While I retain the use 
of my tongue, I will exercise it at my leisure and my option. 
I would not bite it off, even for the pleasure of spitting it in 
a tyrant's face, as that brave girl Egina did. But I would 
recommend that, in his wisdom, he should deign to take thine 
preferably, which, having always honey upon it, must suit his 
taste better. 

PLATO. 

Diogenes ! if you must argue or discourse with me, I will 
endure your asperity for the sake of your acuteness : but it 
appears to me a more philosophical thing to avoid what is 
insulting and vexatious, than to breast and brave it. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou hast spoken well. 

PLATO. 

It belongs to the vulgar, not to us, to fly from a man's 
opinions to his actions, and to stab him in his own house for 
having received no wound in the school. One merit you will 
allow me : I always keep my temper ; which you seldom do. 

DIOGENES. 

Is mine a good or a bad one ? 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 87 

PLATO. 

Now must I speak sincerely ? 

DIOGENES. 

Dost thou, a philosopher, ask such a question of me, a 
philosopher ? Ay, sincerely or not at all. 

PLATO. 

Sincerely as you could wish, I must declare then your 
temper is the worst in the world. 

DIOGENES. 

I am much in the right, therefor, not to keep it. Embrace 
me : I have spoken now in thy own manner. Because thou 
sayest the most malicious things the most placidly, thou 
tliinkest or pretendest thou art sincere. 

PLATO. 

Certainly those who are most the masters of their resent- 
ments, are likely to speak less erroneously than the passionate 
and morose. 

DIOGENES. 

If they would, they might : but the moderate are not 
usually the most sincere : for the same circumspection which 
makes them moderate, makes them likewise retentive of what 
could give offence: they are also timid in regard to fortune 
and favour, and hazard little. There is no mass of sincerity 
in any place. What there is must be picked up patiently, a 
grain or two at a time • and the season for it is after a storm, 
after the overflowing of banks, and bursting of mounds, and 
sweeping away of landmarks. Men will always hold some- 
thing back : they must be shaken and loosened a little, to 
make them let go what is deepest in them, and weightiest and 
purest. 

PLATO. 

Shaking and loosening as much about you as was requisite 
for the occasion, it became you to demonstrate where, and in 
what manner, I had made Socrates appear less sagacious and 
less eloquent than he was : it became you likewise to consider 
the great difficulty of finding new thoughts and new expressions 
for those who had more of them than any other men, and to 
represent them in all the brilliancy of their wit and in all the 
majesty of their genius. I do not assert that I have done it ; 
but if I have not, what man has? what man has come so 



88 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

nigh to it? He who could bring Socrates, or Solon, or 
Diogenes, through a dialogue, without disparagement, is much 
nearer in his intellectual powers to them, than any other is 
near to him. 

DIOGENES. 

Let Diogenes alone, and Socrates, and Solon. None of 
the three ever occupied his hours in tinging and curling the 
tarnished plumes of prostitute Philosophy, or deemed any- 
thing worth his attention, care, or notice, that did not make 
men brave and independent. As thou callest on me to show 
thee where and in what manner thou hast misrepresented thy 
teacher, and as thou seemest to set an equal value on eloquence 
and on reasoning, I shall attend to thee aw 7 hile on each of 
these matters, first inquiring of thee w r hether the axiom is 
Socratic, that it is never becoming to get drunk,"* unless in 
the solemnities of Bacchus ? 

PLATO. 

This god was the discoverer of the vine and of its uses, 

DIOGENES. 

Is drunkenness one of its uses, or the discovery of a god ? 
If Pallas or Jupiter hath given us reason, we should sacrifice 
our reason with more propriety to Jupiter or Pallas. To 
Bacchus is due a libation of wane ; the same being his gift, as 
thou preachest. 

Another and a graver question. 

Did Socrates teach thee that u slaves are to be scourged, 
and by no means admonished as though they were the chil- 
dren of the master ? " 

PLATO. 

He did not argue upon government. 

DIOGENES. 

He argued upon humanity, whereon all government is 
founded : whatever is beside it is usurpation. 

PLATO. 

Are slaves then never to be scourged, whatever be their 
transgressions and enormities ? 

DIOGENES. 

Whatever they be, they are less than his who reduced them 
fco their condition. 

* Dialogue VI. on The Laws. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. OV 

PLATO. 

What ! though, they murder his whole family ? 

DIOGENES. 

Ay, and poison the public fountain of the city. What am 
I saying ? and to whom ? Horrible as is this crime, and next 
in atrocity to parricide, thou deemest it a lighter one than 
stealing a fig or grape. The stealer of these is scourged by 
thee; the sentence on the poisoner is to cleanse out the 
receptacle."* There is, however, a kind of poisoning, which, 
to do thee justice, comes before thee with all its horrors, and 
which thou wouldst punish capitally, even in such a sacred 
personage as an aruspex or diviner : I mean the poisoning by 
incantation. I, my whole family, my whole race, my whole 
city, may bite the dust in agony from a truss of henbane in 
the well ; and little harm done forsooth ! Let an idle fool set 
an image of me in wax before the fire, and whistle and caper 
to it, and purr and pray, and chant a hymn to Hecate while it 
melts, intreating and imploring her that I may melt as easily ; 
and thou wouldst, in thy equity and holiness, strangle him at 
the first stave of his psalmody. 

PLATO. 

If this is an absurdity, can you find another ? 

DIOGENES. 

Truly, in reading thy book, I doubted at first, and for a 
long continuance, whether thou couldst have been serious ; 
and whether it were not rather a satire on those busv-bodies 
who are incessantly intermeddling in other people's affairs. It 
was only on the protestation of thy intimate friends that I 
believed thee to have written it in earnest. As for thy question, 
it is idle to stoop and pick out absurdities from a mass of incon- 
sistency and injustice : but another and another I could throw 
in, and another and another afterward, from any page in the 
volume. Two bare staring falsehoods lift their beaks one 
upon the other, like spring frogs. Thou sayest that no 
punishment, decreed by the laws, tendeth to evil. What! 
not if immoderate ? not if partial ? Why then repeal any 
penal statute while the subject of its animadversion exists ? 
In prisons the less criminal are placed among the more 
criminal the inexperienced in vice together with the hardened 

* Dialogue VIII. 



90 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

in it. This is part of the punishment, though it precedes the 
sentence : nay, it is often inflicted on those whom the judges 
acquit : the law, by allowing it, does it. 

The next is, that he who is punished by the laws is the better 
for it, hoAvever the less depraved. What ! if anteriorly to the 
sentence he lives and converses with worse men, some of whom 
console him by deadening the sense of shame, others by 
removing the apprehension of punishment ? Many laws as 
certainly make men bad, as bad men make many laws : yet under 
thy regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse, turn 
the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make 
us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, 
and never cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see 
us safe landed at the grave. We can do nothing (but be 
poisoned) with impunity. What is worst of all, we must 
marry certain relatives and connections, be they distorted, 
blear-eyed, toothless, carbuncled, with hair (if any) eclipsing 
the reddest torch of Hymen, and with a hide outrivalling in 
colour and plaits his trimmest saffron robe. At the mention 
of this indeed, friend Plato ! even thou, although resolved to 
stand out of harm's way, beginnest to make a wry mouth, and 
findest it difficult to pucker and purse it up again, without an 
astringent store of moral sentences. Hymen is truly no 
acquaintance of thine. We know the delicacies of love which 
thou wouldst reserve for the gluttony of heroes and the fasti- 
diousness of philosophers. Heroes, like gods, must have their 
own way : but against thee and thy confraternity of elders I 
would turn the closet-key, and your mouths might water over, 
but your tongues should never enter, those little pots of com- 
fiture. Seriously, you who wear embroidered slippers ought 
to be very cautious of treading in the mire. Philosophers 
should not only live the simplest lives, but should also use 
the plainest language. Poets, in employing magnificent and 
sonorous words, teach philosophy the better by thus^ disarming 
suspicion that the finest poetry contains and conveys the finest 
philosophy. You will never let any man hold his right 
station : you would rank Solon with Homer for poetry. This 
is absurd. The only resemblance is, in both being eminently 
wise. Pindar too makes even the cadences of his dithvrambics 
keep time to the flute of Reason. My tub, which holds fifty- 
fold thy wisdom, would crack at the reverberation of thy 
voice. 



UTO GENES AND PLATO. 91 



Farewell. 



Not quite yet. I must physic thee a little with law again 
before we part ; answer me one more question. In punishing a 
robbery, woulclst thou punish him who steals everything from 
one who wants everything, less severely than him who steals 
little from one who wants nothing ? 



No : in this place the iniquity is manifest : not a problem 
in geometry is plainer. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou liedst then . . in thy sleep perhaps . . bnt thou liedst. 
Differing in one page from what was laid down by thee in 
another,* thou wouldst punish what is called sacrilege with 
death. The magistrates ought to provide that the temples be 
watched so well, and guarded so effectually, as never to be 
liable to thefts. The gods, we mnst suppose, can not do it 
by themselves; for, to admit the contrary, we must admit 
their indifference to the possession of goods and chattels : 
an impiety so great, that sacrilege itself drops into atoms 
under it. He, however, who robs from the gods, be the 
amount what it may, robs from the rich; robs from those who can 
want nothing, although, like the other rich, they are mightily 
vindictive against petty plunderers. But he who steals from 
a poor widow a loaf of bread, may deprive her of everything 
she has in the w r orld ; perhaps, if she be bedridden or paralytic, 
of life itself. 

I am weary of this digression on the inequality of punish- 
ments ; let us come up to the object of them. It is not, 
Plato ! an absurdity of thine alone, but of all who write and 
of all who converse on them, to assert that they both are and 
ought to be inflicted publicly, for the sake of deterring from 
offence. The only effect of public punishment is to show the 
rabble how bravely it can be borne, and that everyone who hath 
lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse. The virtuous man, as a 
reward and a privilege, should be permitted to see how calm and 
satisfied a virtuous man departs. The criminal should be 
kept in the dark about the departure of his fellows, which is 
oftentimes as unreluctant ; for to him, if indeed no reward or 

* Books IX. and X. 



92 DIOGENES AXD PLATO. 

privilege, it would be a corroborative and a cordial. Such 
tilings ought to be taken from him, no less carefully than the 
instruments of destruction or evasion. Secrecy and mystery 
should be the attendants of punishment, and the sole persons 
present should be the injured, or two of his relatives, and a 
functionary delegated by each tribe, to witness and register 
the execution of justice. 

Trials, on the contrary, should be public in every case. It 
being presumable that the sense of shame and honour is not 
hitherto quite extinguished in the defendant, this, if he be 
guilty, is the worst part of his punishment : if innocent, the 
best of his release. From the hour of trial until the hour of 
return to society (or the dust) there should be privacy, there 
should be solitude. 

PLATO. 

It occurs to me, Diogenes, that you agree with Aristoteles 
on the doctrine of necessity. 

DIOGENES. 

I do. 

PLATO. 

How then can you punish, by any heavier chastisement 
than coercion, the heaviest offences ? Everything being 
brought about, as you hold, by fate and predestination . . 



Stay ! Those terms are puerile, and imply a petition of 
a principle : keep to the term necessity. Thou art silent. 
Here then, Plato, will I acknowledge to thee, I wonder it 
should have escaped thy perspicacity that free-will itself is 
nothing else than a part and effluence of necessity. If every- 
thing proceeds from some other thing, every impulse from 
some other impulse, that which impels to choice or will must 
act among the rest. 

PLATO. 

Every impulse from some other (I must so take it) under 
God, or the first cause. 

DIOGENES. 

Be it so : I meddle not at present with infinity or eternity : 
when I can comprehend them I will talk about them. You 
metaphysicians kill the flower-bearing and fruit-bearing glebe 
with delving and turning over and sifting, and never bring up 
any solid and malleable mass from the dark profundity in 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 93 

which you labor. The intellectual world, like tlie physical, 
is inapplicable to profit and incapable of cultivation a little 
way below the surface . . of which there is more to manage, 
and more to know, than any of you will undertake. 



It happens that we do not see the stars at even-tide, some- 
times because there are clouds intervening, but oftener because 
there are glimmerings of light : thus many truths escape us 
from the obscurity we stand in ; and many more from that 
crepuscular state of mind, which induceth us to sit down 
satisfied with our imaginations and unsuspicious of our 
knowledge. 

DIOGENES. 

Keep always to the point, or witli an eye upon it, and 
instead of saying things to make people stare and wonder, say 
what will withhold them hereafter from wondering and staring. 
This is philosophy; to make remote things tangible, common 
things extensively useful, useful things extensively common, 
and to leave the least necessary for the last. I have always 
a suspicion of sonorous sentences. The full shell sounds little, 
but shows by that little what is within. A bladder swells out 
more with wind than with oil. 

PLATO. 

I would not neglect politics nor morals, nor indeed even 
manners : these however are mutable and evanescent : the 
human understanding is immovable and for ever the same in 
its principles and its constitution, and no study is so important 
or so inviting. 

DIOGENES. 

Tour sect hath done little in it. You are singularly fond 
of those disquisitions in which few can detect your failures 
and your fallacies, and in which, if you stumble or err, you may 
find some countenance in those who lost their way before you. 

Is not this school-room of mine, which holdeth but one 
scholar, preferable to that out of which have proceeded so 
many impetuous in passion, refractory in discipline, unprin- 
cipled in adventure, and (worst of all) proud in slavery ? Poor 
creatures who run after a jaded mule or palfrey, to pick np 
what he drops along the road, may be certain of a cabbage 
the larger and the sooner for it \ while those who are equally 
assiduous at the heel of kings and princes, hunger and thirst 



94 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

for more, and usually gather less. Their attendance is neither 
so certain of reward nor so honest ; their patience is scantier, 
their industry weaker, their complaints louder. What shall 
we say of their philosophy? what of their virtue? What 
shall we say of the greatness whereon their feeders plume 
themselves ? not caring they indeed for the humbler character 
of virtue or philosophy. We never call children the greater 
or the better for wanting others to support them : why then 
do we call men so for it ? I would be servant of any helpless 
man for hours together : but sooner shall a king be the slave 
of Diogenes than Diogenes a king's. 

PLATO. 

Companionship, Sinopean, is not slavery. 

DIOGENES. 

Are the best of them worthy to be my companions ? Have 
they ever made you w r iser ? have you ever made them so ? 
Prythee, what is companionship where nothing that improves 
the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart 
contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller ? 
'Tis a dire calamity to have a slave ; 'tis an inexpiable curse to 
he one. When it befalls a man through violence he must be 
pitied: but where is pity, where is pardon, for the wretch 
who solicits it, or bends his head under it through invitation ? 
Thy hardness of heart toward slaves, Plato, is just as 
unnatural as hardness of heart toward dogs would be in me, 

PLATO. 

You would have none perhaps in that condition. 

DIOGENES. 

None should be made slaves, excepting those who have 
attempted to make others so, or who spontaneously have 
become the instruments of unjust and unruly men. Even 
these ought not to be scourged every day perhaps; for their 
skin is the only sensitive part of them, and such castigation 
might shorten their lives. 

PLATO. 

Which, in your tenderness and mercy, you would not do. 

DIOGENES. 

Longevity is desirable in them ; that they may be exposed 
in coops to the derision of the populace on holidays ; and 
that few may serve the purpose. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 95 



We will pass over this wild and thorny theory, into the 
field of civilization in which we live ; and here I must remark 
the evil consequences that would ensue, if our domestics could 
listen to you about the hardships they are enduring. 

DIOGENES. 

And is it no evil that truth and beneficence should be shut 
out at once from so large a portion of mankind ? Is it none 
when things are so perverted, that an act of beneficence 
might lead to a thousand acts of cruelty, and that one accent 
of truth should be more pernicious than all the falsehoods 
that have been accumulated, since the formation of language, 
since the gift of speech ! I have taken thy view of the 
matter; take thou mine. Hercules was called just and 
glorious, and worshiped as a deity, because he redressed the 
grievances of others : is it unjust, is it inglorious, to redress 
one's own ? If that man rises high in the favour of the 
people, high in the estimation of the valiant and the wise, 
high before God, by the assertion and vindication of his holiest 
law, who punishes with death such as would reduce him or 
his fellow citizens to slavery, how much higher rises he, who, 
being a slave, springs up indignantly from his low estate, and 
thrusts away the living load that intercepts from him, what 
even the reptiles and insects, what even the bushes and 
brambles of the roadside, enjoy ! 

PLATO. 

We began with definitions : I rejoice, Diogenes, that you 
are warmed into rhetoric, in which you will find me a most 
willing auditor : for I am curious to collect a specimen of 
your prowess, where you have not yet established any part of 
your celebrity. . 

DIOGENES. 

I am idle enough for it : but I have other things yet for 
thy curiosity, other things yet for thy castigation. 

Thou wouldst separate the military from the citizens, from 
artizans and from agriculturists. A small body of soldiers, 
who never could be anything else, would in a short time 
subdue and subjugate the industrious and the .wealthy. They 
would begin by demanding an increase of pay; then they 
would insist on admission to magistracies ; and presently their 
general would assume the sovranty, and create new offices 



96 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

of trust and profit for the strength and security of his usurpa- 
tion. Soldiers, in a free state, should be enrolled from those 
principally who are most interested in the conservation of 
order and property ; chiefly the sons of tradesmen in towns : 
first, because there is the less detriment done to agriculture ; 
the main thing to be considered in all countries : secondly, 
because such people are pronest to sedition, from the two 
opposite sides of enrichment and poverty : and lastly, because 
their families are always at hand, responsible for their fidelity, 
and where shame would befall them thickly in case of 
cowardice, or any misconduct. Those governments are the 
most flourishing and stabile, which have the fewest idle youths 
about the streets and theatres : it is only with the sword that 
they can cut the halter. 

Thy faults arise from two causes principally : first, a fond- 
ness for playing tricks with argument and with fancy : secondly, 
swallowing from others what thou hast not taken time enough 
nor exercise enough to digest. 

PLATO. 

Lay before me the particular tilings you accuse me of 
drawing from others. 

DIOGENES. 

Thy opinions on numbers are distorted from those of the 
Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Syrians ; who believe that 
numbers, and letters too, have peculiar powers, independent of 
what is represented by them on the surface. 

PLATO. 

I have said more, and often differently. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou hast indeed. Neither they nor Pythagoras ever 
taught, as thou hast done, that the basis of the earth is an 
equilateral triangle, and the basis of water a rectangular. We 
are then informed by thy sagacity, that " the world has no need 
of eyes, because nothing is left to be looked at out of it ; nor 
of ears, because nothing can be heard beyond it ; nor of any 
parts for the reception, concoction, and voidance, of nutriment ; 
because there can be no secretion nor accretion."* 

This indeed is very providential. If things were otherwise, 
foul might befall your genii, who are always on active service : 

* Timceus. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 97 

a world would not bespatter them so lightly as we mortals are 
bespattered by a swallow. Whatever is asserted on things 
tangible, should be asserted from experiment only. Thou 
shouldst have defended better that which thou hast stolen : 
a thief should not only have impudence, but courage. 

PLATO. 

What do you mean ? 

DIOGEXES. 

I mean that every one of thy whimsies hath been picked up 
somewhere by thee in thy travels ; and each of them hath been ' 
rendered more weak and puny by its place of concealment in 
thy closet. What thou hast written on the immortality of the 
soul, goes rather to prove the immortality of the body ; and 
applies as well to the body of a weasel or an eel as to the 
fairer one of Agathon or of Aster. Why not at once introduce 
a new religion ? # since religions keep and are relished in 
proportion as they are salted with absurdity, inside and out ; 
and all of them must have one great crystal of it for the 
centre; but Philosophy pines and dies unless she drinks 
limpid water. When Pherecydes and Pythagoras felt in them- 
selves the majesty of contemplation, they spurned the idea 
that flesh and bones and arteries should confer it ; and that 
what comprehends the past and the future, should sink in a 
moment and be annihilated for ever. No, cried they, the 
power of thinking is no more in the brain than in the hair, 
although the brain may be the instrument on which it plays. 
It is not corporeal, it is not of this world • its existence is 
eternity, its residence is infinity. I forbear to discuss the 
rationality of their belief, and pass on straightway to thine ; 
if indeed I am to consider as one, belief and doctrine. 

PLATO. 

As you will. 

DIOGENES. 

I should rather then regard these things as mere ornaments ; 
just as many decorate their apartments with lyres and harps, 
which they themselves look at from the couch, supinely com- 
placent, and leave for visitors to admire and play on. 

PLATO. 

I foresee not how you can disprove my argument on the 

* He alludes to the various worships of Egypt, and to what Plato had 
learnt there. 

H 



98 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

immortality of the soul, which, being contained in the best of 
my dialogues, and being often asked for among my friends, 
I carry with me. 

DIOGENES. 

At this time ? 

PLATO. 

Even so. 

DIOGENES. 

Give me then a certain part of it for my perusal. 

PLATO. 

Willingly. 

DIOGENES. 

Hermes and Pallas ! I wanted but a cubit of it, or at 
most a fathom, and thou art pulling it out by the plethron. 

PLATO. 

This is the place in question. 

DIOGENES. 

Read it. 

plato (reads.) 

"Sayest thou not that death is the opposite of life, and 
that they spring the one from the other ? " " Yes/ 3 " What 
springs then from the living?" " The dead" cc And what 
from the dead ? " " The living" " Then all things alive 
spring from the dead." 

DIOGENES. 

Why that repetition ? but go on. 

plato (reads.) 

" Souls therefor exist after death in the infernal regions." 

DIOGENES. 

Where is the therefor ? where is it even as to existence ? 
As to the infernal regions, there is nothing that points toward 
a proof, or promises an indication. Death neither springs 
from life, nor life from death. Although death is the inevi- 
table consequence of life, if the observation and experience of 
ages go for anything, yet nothing shows us, or ever hath 
signified, that life comes from death. Thou mightest as well 
say that a barley-corn dies before the germ of another barley- 
corn grows up from it : than which nothing is more untrue : 
for it is only the protecting part of the germ that perishes, 
when its protection is no longer necessary. The consequence, 
that souls exist after death, can not be drawn from the corrup- 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 99 

tion of the body, even if it were demonstrable that out of this 
corruption a live one could rise up. Thou hast not said that 
the soul is among those dead things which living things must 
spring from : thou hast not said that a living soul produces a 
dead soul, or that a dead soul produces a living one. 

PLATO. 

]S T o indeed. 

DIOGENES. 

On my faith, thou hast said however things no less incon- 
siderate, no less inconsequent, no less unwise ; and this very 
tiling must be said and proved, to make thy argument of any 
value. Do dead men beget children ? 

PLATO. 

I have not said it. 

DIOGENES. 

Thy argument implies it. 

PLATO. 

These are high mysteries, and to be approached with rever- 



ence. 



Whatever we can not account for, is in the same predica- 
ment. We may be gainers by being ignorant if we can be 
thought mysterious. It is better to shake our heads and to 
let nothing out of them, than to be plain and explicit in 
matters of difficulty. I do not mean in confessing our igno- 
rance or our imperfect knowledge of them, but in clearing 
them up perspicuously : for, if we answer with ease, we may 
haply be thought good-natured, quick, communicative ; never 
deep, never sagacious ; not very defective possibly in our intel- 
lectual faculties, • yet unequal and chinky, and liable to the 
probation of every clown's knuckle. 



The brightest of stars appear the most unsteddy and 
tremulous in their light ; not from any quality inherent in 
themselves, but from the vapours that float below, and from 
the imperfection of vision in the surveyor. 



To the stars again ! Draw thy robe round thee ; let the 

h2 



100 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

folds fall gracefully, and look majestic. That sentence is an 
admirable one ; but not for me. I want sense, not stars. 
What then ? Do no vapours float below the others ? and is 
there no imperfection in the vision of those who look at them, 
if they are the same men, and look the next moment ? We 
must move on : I shall follow the dead bodies, and the 
benighted driver of their fantastic bier, close and keen as any 
hyena. 

PLATO. 

Certainly, Diogenes, you excell me in elucidations and 
similies : mine was less obvious. Lycaon became against his 
will, what you become from pure humanity. 

DIOGENES. 

When Humanity is averse to Truth, a fig for her. 

PLATO. 

Many, who profess themselves her votaries, have made her 
a less costly offering. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou hast said well, and I will treat thee gently for it. 

PLATO. 

I may venture then in defence of my compositions, to argue 
that neither simple metaphysics nor strict logic would be 
endured long together in a dialogue. 

DIOGENES. 

Tew people can endure them anywhere : but whatever is con- 
tradictory to either is intolerable. The business of a good 
writer is to make them pervade his works, without obstruction 
to his force or impediment to his facility ; to divest them of 
their forms, and to mingle their potency in every particle. I 
must acknowledge that, in matters of love, thy knowledge is 
twice as extensive as mine is : yet nothing I ever heard is so 
whimsical and silly as thy description of its effects upon the 
soul, under the influence of beauty. The wings of the soul, 
thou tellest us, are bedewed; and certain germs of theirs 
expand from every part of it. 

The only thing I know about the soul is, that it makes 
the ground slippery under us when we discourse on it, by 
virtue (I presume) of this bedewing ; and beauty does not 
assist us materially in rendering our steps the steddier. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 101 

PLATO. 

Diogenes ! you are the only man that admires not the 
dignity and stateliness of my expressions. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou hast many admirers • but either they never have read 
thee, or do not understand thee, or are fond of fallacies, or are 
incapable of detecting them. I would rather hear the murmur 
of insects in the grass than the clatter and trilling of cymbals 
and timbrels over-head. The tiny animals I watch with com- 
posure, and guess their business ; the brass awakes me only 
to weary me : I wish it under-ground again, and the parch- 
ment on the sheep's back. 

PLATO. 

My sentences, it is acknowledged by all good judges, are 
well constructed and harmonious. 



I admit it : I have also heard it said that thou art eloquent. 

PLATO. 

If style, without elocution, can be. 

DIOGENES. 

Neither without nor with elocution is there eloquence, where 
there is no ardour, no impulse, no energy, no concentration. 
Eloquence raises the whole man : thou raisest our eyebrows 
only. We wonder, we applaud, we walk away, and we 
forget. Thy eggs are very prettily speckled ; but those which 
men use for their sustenance are plain white ones. People do 
not every day put on their smartest dresses ; they are not 
always in trim for dancing, nor are they practising their steps 
in all places. I profess to be no weaver of fine words, no dealer 
in the plumes of phraseology, yet every man and every woman 
I speak to understands me. 

PLATO. 

Which would not always be the case if the occulter opera- 
tions of the human mind were the subject. 

DIOGENES. 

If what is occult must be occult for ever, why throw away 
words about it ? Employ on every occasion the simplest and 
easiest, and range them in the most natural order. Thus they 
will serve thee faithfully, bringing thee many hearers and 



102 DIOGENES AXD PLATO. 

readers from the intellectual and uncorrupted. All popular 
orators, victorious commanders, crowned historians, and poets 
above crowning, have done it. Homer, for the glory of whose 
birthplace none but the greatest cities dared contend, is alike 
the highest and the easiest in poetry. Herodotus, who brought 
into Greece more knowledge of distant countries than any or 
indeed than all before him, is the plainest and gracefulest in 
prose. Aristoteles, thy scholar, is possessor of along and lofty 
treasury, with many windings and many vaults at the sides of 
them, abstruse and dark. He is unambitious of displaying 
his wealth ; and few are strong-wristed enough to turn the 
key of his iron chests. Whenever he presents to his reader 
one full-blown thought, there are several buds about it which 
are to open in the cool of the study ; and he makes you learn 
more than he teaches. 

PLATO. 

I can never say that I admire his language. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou wilt never say it; but thou dost. His language, 
where he wishes it to be harmonious, is highly so : and there 
are many figures of speech exquisitely beautiful, but simple 
and unobtrusive. You see what a fine head of hair he might 
have if he would not cut it so short. Is there as much true 
poetry in all thy works, prose and verse, as in that Scoliori of 
his on Virtue ? 

PLATO. 

I am less invidious than he is. 

DIOGENES. 

He may indeed have caught the infection of malignity, which 
all who live in the crowd, whether of a court or a school, are 
liable to contract. We had dismissed that question : we had 
buried the mortal and corruptible part of him, and were looking 
into the litter which contains his true and everlasting effigy : 
and this effigy the strongest and noblest minds will carry by 
relays to interminable generations. We were speaking of his 
thoughts and what conveys them. His language then, in 
good truth, differs as much from that which we find in thy 
dialogues, as wine in the goblet differs from wine spilt upon 
the table. With thy leave, I would rather drink than lap. 

PLATO. 

Metliinks such preference is contrary to your nature. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 103 

DIOGENES. 

All Plato ! I ought to be jealous of thee, finding that two 
in this audience can smile at thy wit, and not one at mine. 

PLATO. 

1 would rather be serious, but that my seriousness is provo- 
cative of your moroseness. Detract from me as much as can 
be detracted by the most hostile to my philosophy, stil it is 
beyond the power of any man to suppress or to conceal from 
the admiration of the world the amplitude and grandour of 
my language. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou remindest me of a cavern I once entered. The mouth 
was spacious ; and many dangling weeds and rampant briers 
caught me by the hair above, and by the beard below, and 
flapped my face on each side. I found it in some places flat 
and sandy ; in some rather miry ; in others I bruised my shins 
against Little pointed pinnacles, or larger and smoother round 
stones. Many were the windings, and deep the darkness. 
Several men came forward with long poles and lighted torches 
on them, promising to show innumerable gems, on the roof 
and along the sides, to some ingenuous youths whom they 
conducted. I thought I was lucky, and went on among 
them. Most of the gems turned out to be drops of water ; 
but. some were a little more solid. These however in general 
gave way and crumbled under the touch ; and most of the 
remainder lost all their brightness by the smoke of the torches 
underneath. The farther I went in, the fouler grew the air 
and the dimmer the torchlight. Leaving it, and the youths, 
and the guides and the long poles, I stood a moment in 
wonder at the vast number of names and verses graven at the 
opening, and forbore to insert the ignoble one of Diogenes. 

The vulgar indeed and the fashionable do call such language 
as thine the noblest and most magnificent : the scholastic bend 
over it in paleness, and with the right hand upon the breast, at 
its unfathomable depth : but what would a man of plain simple 
sound understanding say upon it ? what would a metaphy- 
sician ? what would a logician ? what would Pericles ? Truly, 
he had taken thee by the arm, and kissed that broad well- 
perfumed forehead, for filling up with light (as thou wouldst 
say) the dimple in the cheek of Aspasia, and for throwing such 
a gadfly in the current of her conversation. She was of a 



304 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

different sect from thee both in religion and in love, and both 
her language and her dress were plainer. 

PLATO. 

She, like yourself, worshiped no deity in public : and pro- 
bably both she and Aristoteles find the more favour with you 
from the laxity of their opinions in regard to the Powers above. 
The indifference of Aristoteles to religion may perhaps be the 
reason why King Philip bespoke him so early for the tuition 
of his successor; on whom, destined as he is to pursue the 
conquests of the father, moral and religious obligations might 
be incommodious. 

DIOGENES. 

Kings who kiss the toes of the most gods, and the most 
zealously, never find any such incommodiousness, In courts, 
religious ceremonies cover with their embroidery moral obliga- 
tions ; and the most dishonest and the most libidinous and 
the most sanguinary kings (to say nothing of private men) 
have usually been the most punctual worshipers. 

PLATO. 

There may be truth in these words. "We however know 
your contempt for religious acts and ceremonies, which, if you 
do not comply with them, you should at least respect, by way 
of an example. 

DIOGENES. 

"What ! if a man lies to me, should I respect the lie for the 
sake of an example ! Should I be guilty of duplicity for the 
sake of an example ! Did I ever omit to attend the 
Thesmophoria ? the only religious rite worthy of a wise 
man's attendance. It displays the union of industry and law. 
Here is no fraud, no fallacy, no filching : the gods are 
worshipt for their best gifts, and do not stand with open palms 
for ours. I neither laugh nor wonder at anyone's folly. To 
laugh at it, is childish or inhumane, according to its xiature ; and 
to wonder at it, would be a greater folly than itself, whatever 
it may be. 

Must I go on with incoherencies and inconsistences ? 

PLATO. 

I am not urgent with you. 

DIOGENES. 

Then I will reward thee the rather. 

Thou makest poor Socrates tell us that a beautiful vase is 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 105 

inferior to a beautiful horse ; and as a beautiful horse is 
inferior to a beautiful maiden, in like manner a beautiful 
maiden is inferior in beauty to the immortal gods. 

PLATO. 

No doubt, Diogenes ! 



Thou hast whimsical ideas of beauty : but, understanding 
the word as all Athenians and all inhabitants of Hellas under- 
stand it, there is no analogy between a horse and a vase. 
Understanding it as thou perhaps mayest choose to do on the 
occasion, understanding it as applicable to the service and 
utility of man and gods, the vase may be applied to more 
frequent and more noble purposes than the horse. It may 
delight men in health ; it may administer to them in sickness ; 
it may pour out before the protectors of families and of cities the 
wine of sacrifice. But if it is the quality and essence of beauty 
to gratify the sight, there are certainly more persons who can 
receive gratification from the appearance of a beautiful vase 
than of a beautiful horse. Xerxes brought into Hellas with him 
thousands of beautiful horses and many beautiful vases. Sup- 
posing now that all the horses which were beautiful seemed so 
to all good judges of their symmetry, it is probable that 
scarcely one man in fifty w^ould fix his eyes attentively on one 
horse in fifty ; but undoubtedly there were vases in the tents 
of Xerxes which would have attracted all the eyes in the army 
and have filled them with admiration. I say nothing of the 
women, who in Asiatic armies are as numerous as the men, and 
who would every one admire the vases, while few admired the 
horses. Yet women are as good judges of what is beautiful as 
thou art, and for the most part on the same principles. But, 
repeating that .there is no analogy between the two objects, I 
must insist that there can be no just comparison : and I trust 
I have clearly demonstrated that the postulate is not to be 
conceded. We will nevertheless carry on the argument and 
examination : for "the beautiful virgin is inferior in beauty. to 
the immortal gods." Is not Vulcan an immortal god ? are 
not the Furies and Discord immortal goddesses? Ay, by 
my troth are they ; and there never was any city and scarcely 
any family on earth to which they were long invisible. Wouldst 
thou prefer them to a golden cup, or even to a cup from the 
potter's? Would it require one with a dance of Bacchanals 



106 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

under the pouting rim ? would it require one foretasted by 
Agathon? Let us descend from the deities to the horses. 
Thy dress is as well adapted to horsemanship as thy words 
are in general to discourse. Such as thou art would run 
out of the horse's way ; and such as know thee best would 
put the vase out of thine. 

PLATO. 

So then, I am a thief, it appears, not only of men's notions, 
but of their vases ! 

DIOGENES. 

Nay, nay, my good Plato ! Thou hast however the frailty 
of concupiscence for tilings tangible and intangible, and thou 
likest well-turned vases no less than well-turned sentences : 
therefor they who know thee would leave no temptation in 
thy way, to the disturbance and detriment of thy soul. Away 
with the horse and vase ! we will come together to the 
quarters of the virgin. Faith ! my friend, if we find her 
only just as beautiful as some of the goddesses we were 
naming, her virginity will be as immortal as their divinity. 

PLATO. 

I have given a reason for my supposition. 

DIOGENES. 

What is it ? 

PLATO. 

Because there is a beauty incorruptible, and for ever the 
same. 

DIOGENES. 

Yisible beauty ? beauty cognisable in the same sense as of 
vases and of horses ? beauty that in degree and in quality 
can be compared with theirs ? Is there any positive proof 
that the gods possess it ? and all of them ? and all equally ? 
Are there any points of resemblance between Jupiter and 
the daughter of Acrisius ? any between Hate and Hebe ? 
whose sex being the same brings them somewhat nearer. In 
like manner thou confoundest the harmony of music Avith 
symmetry in what is visible and tangible : and thou teachest 
the stars how to dance to their own compositions, enlivened 
by fugues and variations from thy master-hand. This, in 
the opinion of thy boy scholars, is sublimity ! Truly it is 
the sublimity which he attains who is hurled into the air from 
a ballista. Changing my ground, and perhaps to thy advan- 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 107 

tage, in the name of Socrates I come forth against thee ; not 
for using him as a wide-mouthed mask, stuffed with gibes 
and quibbles; not for making him the most sophistical of 
sophists, or (as thou hast done frequently) the most impro- 
vident of statesmen and the worst of citizens ; my accusation 
and indictment is, for representing him, who had distinguisht 
himself on the field of battle above the bravest and most 
experienced of the Athenian leaders (particularly at Delion 
and Potidea), as more ignorant of warfare than the worst- 
fledged crane that fought against the Pygmies. 

PLATO. 

I am not conscious of having done it. 

DIOGENES. 

I believe thee : but done it thou hast. The language of 
Socrates was attic and simple : he hated the verbosity and 
refinement of wranglers and rhetoricians ; and never would 
he have attributed to Aspasia, who thought and spoke like 
Pericles, and whose elegance and judgment thou thyself hast 
commended, the chaff and litter thou hast tossed about with 
so much wind and wantonness, in thy dialogue of Menexenus. 
Now, to omit the other fooleries in it, Aspasia would have 
laught to scorn the most ignorant of her tire-women, who 
should have related to her the story thou tellest in her name, 
about the march of the Persians round the territory of Eretria. 
This narrative seems to thee so happy an attempt at history, 
that thou betrayest no small fear lest the reader should take 
thee at thy word, and lest Aspasia should in reality rob thee 
or Socrates of the dory due for it. 

PLATO. 

TYTiere lies the fault ? 

DIOGENES. 

If the Persians had marched, as thou describest them, 
forming a circle, and from sea to sea, with their hands 
joined together; fourscore shepherds with their dogs, their 
rams, and their bell-wethers, might have killed them all, 
coming against them from points well-chosen. As, however, 
great part of the Persians were horsemen, which thou appearest 
to have quite forgotten, how could they go in single Hue with 
their hands joined, unless they lay flat upon their backs along 
the backs of their horses, and unless the horses themselves 
went tail to tail, one pulling on the other ? Even then the 



108 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

line would be interrupted, and only two could join hands. A 
pretty piece of net- work is here ! and the only defect I can 
find in it is, that it would help the fish to catch the fisherman. 

PLATO. 

This is an abuse of wit, if there be any wit in it. 

DIOGENES. 

I doubt whether there is any ; for the only man that hears 
it does not smile. We will be serious then. Such nonsense, 
delivered in a school of philosophy, might be the less derided ; 
but it is given us as an oration, held before an Athenian army, 
to the honour of those who fell in battle. The beginning of 
the speech is cold and languid : the remainder is worse ; it is 
learned and scholastic. 

PLATO. 

Is learning worse in oratory than languor ? 



Incomparably, in the praises of the dead who died bravely, 
played off before those who had just been fighting in the 
same ranks. What we most want in this business is sincerity ; 
what we want least are things remote from the action. Men 
may be cold by nature, and languid from exhaustion, from 
grief itself, from watchfulness, from pity ; but they can not 
be idling and wandering about other times and nations, when 
their brothers and sons and bosom-friends are brought lifeless 
into the city, and the least inquisitive, the least sensitive, are 
hanging immovably over their recent wounds. Then burst 
forth their names from the full heart; their fathers' names 
come next, hallowed with lauds and benedictions that flow 
over upon their whole tribe ; then are lifted their helmets and 
turned round to the spectators ; for the grass is fastened to 
them by their blood, and it is befitting to show the people 
how they must have struggled to rise up, and to fight afresh 
for their country. Without the virtues of courage and patri- 
otism, the seeds of such morality as is fruitful and substantial 
spring up thinly, languidly, and ineffectually. The images 
of great men should be stationed throughout the works of 
great historians. 

PLATO. 

According to your numeration, the great men are scanty : 
and pray, Diogenes ! are they always at hand ? 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 109 



Prominent men always are. Catch tliem and hold them 
fast, when thou canst find none better. Whoever hath influ- 
enced the downfall or decline of a commonwealth, whoever 
hath altered in any degree its social state, should be brought 
before the high tribunal of History. 



Very mean intellects have accomplished these things. Not 
only battering-rams have loosened the walls of cities, but 
foxes and rabbits have done the same. Vulgar and vile men 
have been elevated to power by circumstances : would you 
introduce the vulgar and vile into the pages you expect to be 
immortal ? 

DIOGENES. 

They never can blow out immortality. Criminals do not 
deform by their presence the strong and stately edifices in 
which they are incarcerated. I look above them and see the 
image of Justice : I rest my arm against the plinth where 
the protectress of cities raises her spear by the judgment- 
seat. Thou art not silent on the vile; but delightest in 
bringing them out before us, and in reducing their betters to 
the same condition. 

PLATO. 

I am no writer of history. 



Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on 
almost what subject he may. He carries with liim for 
thousands of years a portion of his times : and indeed if 
only his own effigy were there, it would be greatly more than 
a fragment of his country. 

In all thy writings I can discover no mention of Epami- 
nondas, who vanquished thy enslavers the Lacedsemonians ; 
nor of Thrasybulus, who expelled the murderers of thy 
preceptor. Whenever thou again displayest a specimen of 
thy historical researches, do not utterly overlook the fact 
that these excellent men were living in thy clays ; that they 
fought against thy enemies; that they rescued thee from 
slavery ; that thou art indebted to them for the whole estate 
of this interminable robe, with its valleys and hills and wastes ; 
for these perfumes that overpower all mine; and moreover 



110 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

for thy house, thy grove, thy auditors, thy admirers and thy 
admired. 

PLATO. 

Thrasybulus, with many noble qualities, had great faults. 

DIOGENES. 

Great men too often have greater faults than little men can 
find room for. 

PLATO. 

Epaminondas was undoubtedly a momentous man, and 
formidable to Lacedsemon, but Pelopidas shared his glory. 

DIOGENES. 

How ready we all are with our praises when a cake is to 
be divided ; if it is not ours ! 

PLATO. 

I acknowledge his magnanimity, his integrity, his political 
skill, his military services, and, above all, his philosophical turn 
of mind : but since his countrymen, who knew him best, 
have until recently been silent on the transcendency of his 
merits, I think I may escape from obloquy in leaving them 
unnoticed. His glorious death appears to have excited more 
enthusiastic acclamation than his patriotic heroism. 

DIOGENES. 

The sun colors the sky most deeply and most diffusely 
when he hath sunk below the horizon ; and they who never 
said " How beneficently he shines V } say at last, " How 
brightly he set !" They who believe that their praise gives 
immortality, and who know that it gives celebrity and distinc- 
tion, are iniquitous and flagitious in withdrawing it from such 
exemplary men, such self-devoted citizens, as Epaminondas 
and Thrasybulus. 

Great writers are gifted with that golden wand which neither 
ages can corrode nor violence rend asunder, and are commanded 
to point with it toward the head (be it lofty or low) which 
nations are to contemplate and to revere. 

PLATO. 

I should rather have conceived from you that the wand 
ought to designate those who merit the hatred of their species. 

DIOGENES. 

This too is another of its offices, no less obligatory and 
sacred. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 11 1 



Not only have I particularised such, faults as I could 
investigate and detect, but in that historical fragment, which 
I acknowledge to be mine (although I left it in abeyance 
between Socrates and Aspasia), I have lauded the courage 
and conduct of our people. 

DIOGENES. 

Thou recountest the glorious deeds of the Athenians by 
sea and land, staidly and circumstantially, as if the Athenians 
themselves, or any nation of the universe, could doubt them. 
Let orators do this when some other shall have rivalled them, 
which, as it never hath happened in the myriads of generations 
that have passed away, is never likely to happen in the myriads 
that will follow. Prom Asia, from Africa, fifty nations came 
forward in a body, and assailed the citizens of one scanty 
city : fifty nations fled from before them. All the wealth 
and power of the world, all the civilisation, all the barbarism, 
were leagued against Athens; the ocean was covered with 
their pride and spoils • the earth trembled ; mountains were 
severed, distant coasts united : Athens gave to Nature her 
own again : and equal laws were the unalienable dowry 
brought by Liberty, to the only men capable of her defence 
or her enjoyment. Did Pericles, did Aspasia, did Socrates 
foresee, that the descenclents of those, whose heroes and gods 
were at best but like them, should enter into the service of 
Persian satraps, and become the parasites of Sicilian kings ? 

PLATO. 

Pythagoras, the most temperate and retired of mortals, 
entered the courts of princes. 

DIOGENES. 

True ; he entered them and cleansed them : his breath was 
lustration ; his touch purified. He persuaded the princes of 
Italy to renounce their self-constituted and unlawful authority : 
in effecting which purpose, thou must acknowledge, Plato, 
that either he was more eloquent than thou art, or that he was 
juster. If, being in the confidence of a usurper, which in 
itself is among the most hainous of crimes, since they virtually 
are outlaws, thou never gavest him such counsel at thy ease 
and leisure as Pythagoras gave at the peril of his life, thou in 
this likewise wert wanting to thy duty as an Athenian, a 
republican, a philosopher. If thou offeredst it, and it was 



112 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

rejected, and after the rejection thou yet tarriedst with him, 
then wert thou, friend Plato, an importunate sycophant and 
self-bound slave. 

PLATO. 

T never heard that you blamed Euripides in this manner for 
frequenting the court of Archelaus. 

DIOGENES. 

I have heard thee blame him for it ; and this brings down 
on thee my indignation. Poets, by the constitution of their 
minds, are neither acute reasoners nor firmly-minded. Their 
vocation was allied to sycophancy from the beginning : they 
sang at the tables of the rich : and he who could not make a 
hero could not make a dinner. Those who are possest of 
enthusiasm are fond of everything that excites it ; hence poets 
are fond of festivals, of wine, of beauty, and of glory. They 
can not always make their selection ; and generally they are 
little disposed to make it, from indolence of character. Theirs 
partakes less than others of the philosophical and the heroic. 
What wonder if Euripides hated those who deprived him of 
his right, in adjudging the prize of tragedy to his competitor ? 
Erom hating the arbitrators who committed the injustice, he 
proceded to hate the people who countenanced it. The 
whole frame of government is bad to those who have suffered 
under any part. Archelaus praised Euripides' s poetry : he 
therefor liked Archelaus : the Athenians bantered his poetry : 
therefor he disliked the Athenians. Beside, he could not love 
those who killed his friend and teacher : if thou canst, I hope 
thy love may be for ever without a rival. 



He might surely have found, in some republic of Greece, 
the friend who would have sympathized with him. 

DIOGENES. 

He might : nor have I any more inclination to commend 
his choice than thou hast right to condemn it. Terpander and 
Thales and Pherecydes were at Sparta with Lycurgus : and 
thou too, Plato, mightest have found in Greece a wealthy wise 
man ready to receive thee, or (where words are more acceptable) 
an unwise wealthy one. Why dost thou redden and bite thy 
lip ? Wouldst thou rather give instruction, or not give it ? 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 113 



I would rather give it, where I could. 

DIOGENES. 

Wouldst thou rather give it to those who have it already, 
and do not need it, or to those who have it not, and do 
need it ? 

PLATO. 

To these latter. 

DIOGENES. 

Impart it then to the unwise ; and to those who are wealthy 
in preference to the rest, as they require it most, and can do 
most good with it. 

PLATO. 

Is not this a contradiction to your own precepts, 
Diogenes ? Have you not been censuring me, I need not say 
how severely, for my intercourse with Dionysius? and yet 
surely he was wealthy, surely he required the advice of a 
philosopher, surely he could have done much good with it. 



An Athenian is more degraded by becoming the counsellor 
of a king, than a king is degraded by becoming the school- 
master of paupers in a free city. Such people as Dionysius 
are to be approached by the brave and honest from two 
motives only : to convince them of their inutility, or to slay 
them for their iniquity. Our fathers and ourselves have wit- 
nessed in more than one country the curses of kingly power. 
All nations, all cities, all communities, should enter into one 
great hunt, like that of the Scythians at the approach of 
winter, and should follow it up unrelentingly to its perdition. 
The diadem should designate the victim : all who wear it, all 
who offer it, all who bow to it, should perish. The smallest, 
the poorest, the least accessible village, whose cottages are 
indistinguishable from the rocks around, should offer a reward 
for the heads of these monsters, as for the wolf's, the kite's, and 
the viper's. 

Thou teilest us, in thy fourth book on Polity, that it matters 
but little whether a state be governed by many or one, if the 
one is obedient to the laws. Why hast not thou likewise told 
us, that it little matters whether the sun bring us heat or cold, 
if he ripens the fruits of the earth by cold as perfectly as by 
heat ? Demonstrate that he does it, and I subscribe to the 



114 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

proposition. Demonstrate that kings, by their nature and 
education, are obedient to the laws; bear them patiently; 
deem them no impediment to their wishes, designs, lusts, 
violences ; that a whole series of monarchs hath been of this 
character and condition, wherever a whole series hath been 
permitted to continue; that under them independence of 
spirit, dignity of mind, rectitude of conduct, energy of 
character, truth of expression, and even lower and lighter 
things, eloquence, poetry, sculpture, painting, have flourished 
more exuberantly than among the free. On the contrary, some 
of the best princes have rescinded the laws they themselves 
introduced and sanctioned. Impatient of restraint and order 
are even the quiet and inert of the species. 

PLATO. 

There is a restlessness in inactivity : we must find occupation 
for kings. 

DIOGENES. 

Open the fold to them and they will find it themselves : 
there will be plenty of heads and shanks on the morrow. I do 
not see why those who, directly or indirectly, would promote 
a kingly government, should escape the penalty of death, 
whenever it can be inflicted, any more than those who decoy 
men into slave-ships. 

PLATO. 

Supposing me to have done it, I have used no deception. 

DIOGENES. 

What ! it is no deception to call people out of their homes, 
to offer them a good supper and good beds if they will go 
along with thee ; to take the key out of the house- door, that 
they may not have the trouble of bearing the weight of it ; to 
show them plainly through the window the hot supper and 
comfortable bed, to which indeed the cook and chamberlain do 
beckon and invite them, but inform them however on entering, 
it is only on condition that they never stir a foot beyond the 
supper-room and bed-room ; to be conscious, as thou must be, 
when they desire to have rather their own key again, eat their 
own lentils, sleep on their own pallet, that thy friends the cook 
and chamberlain have forged the title-deeds, mortgaged the 
house and homestead, given the lentils to the groom, made a 
horse-cloth of the coverlet and a manger of the pallet ; that, 
on the first complaint against such an apparent injury (for at 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 115 

present they think and call it one), the said cook and cham- 
berlain seize them by the hair, strip, scourge, imprison, and 
gag them, showing them through the grating what capital 
dishes are on the table for the more deserving, what an appetite 
the fumes stir up, and how sensible men fold their arms 
upon the breast contentedly, and slumber soundly after the 
carousal. 

PLATO. 

People may exercise their judgment. 



People may spend their money. All people have not much 
money ; all people have not much judgment. It is cruel to 
prey or impose on those who have little of either. There is 
nothing so absurd that the ignorant have not believed : they 
have believed, and will believe for ever, what thou wouldst 
teach : namely, that others who never saw them, never are 
likely to see them, will care more about them than they should 
care about themselves. This pernicious fraud begins with 
perverting the intellect, and proceeds with seducing and cor- 
rupting the affections, which it transfers from the nearest to 
the most remote, from the dearest to the most indifferent. It 
enthrals the freedom both of mind and body • it annihilates 
not only political and moral, but, what nothing else however 
monstrous can do, even arithmetical proportions, making a 
unit more than a million. Odious is it in a parent to murder 
or sell a child, even in time of famine : but to sell him in the 
midst of plenty, to lay his throat at the mercy of a wild and 
riotous despot, to whet and kiss and present the knife that 
immolates him, and to ask the same favour of being immolated 
for the whole family in perpetuity, is not this an abomination 
ten thousand times more execrable ? 

Let Falsehood be eternally the enemy of Truth, but not 
eternally her mistress : let Power be eternally the despiser of 
Weakness, but not eternally her oppressor : let Genius be 
eternally in the train or in the trammels of Wealth, but not 
eternally his sycophant and his pander. 



What a land is Attica ! in which the kings themselves were 
the mildest and best citizens, and resigned the sceptre ; deeming 
none other worthy of supremacy than the wisest and most 

i 2 



116 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

warlike of the immortal Gods. In Attica the olive and corn 
were first cultivated. 

DIOGENES. 

Like other Athenians, thou art idly fond of dwelling on the 
antiquity of the people, and wouldst fain persuade thyself, not 
only that the first corn and olive, but even that the first man, 
sprang from Attica. I rather think that what historians call 
the emigration of the Pelasgians under Danatis, was the 
emigration of those 'shepherds' as they continued to be 
denominated, who, having long kept possession of Egypt, were 
besieged in the city of Aoudris, by Thoutmosis, and retired by 
capitulation. These probably were of Chaldaic origin. Danatis, 
like every wise legislator, introduced such religious rites as 
were adapted to the country in which he settled. The ancient 
being once relaxed, admission was made gradually for honoring 
the brave and beneficent, who in successive generations 
extended the boundary of the colonists, and defended them 
against the resentment and reprisal of the native chieftains. 

PLATO. 

This may be ; but evidence, is wanting. 

DIOGENES. 

Indeed it is not quite so strong and satisfactory as in that 
piece of history, where thou maintainest that c each of us is 
the half of a man! * By Neptune ! a vile man, too, or the 
computation were overcharged. 

PLATO. 

We copy these things from old traditions. 

DIOGENES. 

Copy rather the manners of antiquity than the fables ; or 



* In the Banquet. No two qualities are more dissimilar than the imagina- 
tion of Plato and the imagination of Shakspeare. The Androgyne was 
probably of higher antiquity than Grecian fable. Whencesoever it originated, 
we can not but wonder how Shakspeare met with it. In his King John, 
the citizen of Angiers says of the Lady Blanche and of the Dauphin, 

" He is the half-part of a blessed man, 
Left to be finished by such a she ; 
And she a fair divided excellence 
Whose fullness of perfection lies in him." 

What is beautiful in poetry may be infantine in philosophy, and monstrous 
in physics. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 117 

copy those fables only which convey the manners. That one 
man was cut off another, is a tradition little meriting preser- 
vation. Any old woman who drinks and dozes, could recite 
to us more interesting dreams, and worthier of the Divinity, 

Surely thy effrontery is of the calmest and most philosophical 
kind, that thou remarkest to me a want of historic evidence, 
when I offered a suggestion; and when thou thyself hast 
attributed to Solon the most improbable falsehoods on the 
antiquity and the exploits of your ancestors, telling us that- 
time had 'obliterated' these 'memorable' annals. What is 
obliterated at home, Solon picks up fresh and vivid in Egypt. 
An Egyptian priest, the oldest and wisest of the body, informs 
him that Athens was built a thousand years before Sais, by 
the goddess Xeithes, as they call her, but as we, Athene, who 
received the seed of the city from the Earth and Tulcan. The 
records of Athens are lost, and those of Sais mount up no 
higher than eight thousand years. Enough to make her talk 
like an old woman. 

I have, in other places and on other occasions, remarked to 
those about me many, if not equal and similar, yet gross 
absurdities in thy writings. 

PLATO. 

Gently ! I know it. Several of these, supposing them to 
be what you denominate them, are originally from others, and 
from the gravest men. 

DIOGENES. 

Gross absurdities are usually of that parentage : the idle 
and weak produce but petty ones, and such as gambol at 
theatres and fairs. Thine are good for nothing : men are too 
old, and children too young, to laugh at them. There is no 
room for excuse or apology in the adoption of another's 
foolery. Imagination may heat a writer to such a degree, 
that he feels not what drops from him or clings to him of his 
own : another's is taken up deliberately, and trimmed at 
leisure. I will now proceed with thee. I have heard it 
affirmed (but, as philosophers are the afiirmers, the assertion 
may be questioned) that there is not a notion or idea, in the 
wide compass of thy works, originally thy own. 

PLATO. 

I have made them all mine by my manner of treating 
them. 



118 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

DIOGENES. 

If I throw my cloak over a fugitive slave to steal him, it is 
so short and strait, so threadbare and chinky, that he would 
be recognised by the idlest observer who had seen him seven 
years ago in the market-place : but if thou hadst enveloped 
him in thy versicolored and cloudlike vestiary, puffed and 
effuse, rustling and rolling, nobody could guess well what 
animal was under it, much less what man. And such a tissue 
would conceal a gang of them, as easily as it would a parsley- 
bed, or the study yonder of young Demosthenes. Therefor, 
I no more wonder that thou art tempted to run in chase of 
butterflies, and catchest many, than I am at discovering that 
thou breakest their wings and legs by the weight of the web 
thou throwest over them ; and that we find the head of one 
indented into the body of another, and never an individual 
retaining the colour or character of any species. Thou hast 
indeed, I am inclined to believe, some ideas of thy own : for 
instance, when thou tellest us that a well-governed city ought 
to let her walls go to sleep along the ground. Pallas forbid 
that any city should do it where thou art ! for thou wouldst 
surely deflower her, before the soldiers of the enemy could 
break in on the same errand. The poets are bad enough : 
they every now and then want a check upon them : but there 
must be an eternal vigilance against philosophers. Yet I 
would not drive you all out of the city-gates, because I fain 
would keep the country parts from pollution. 

PLATO. 

Certainly, Diogenes, I can not retort on you the accusation 
of employing any language or any sentiments but your own, 
unquestionably the purest and most genuine Sinopean. 

DIOGENES. 

Welcome to another draught of it, my courteous guest ! 
By thy own confession, or rather thy own boast, thou stolest 
every idea thy voluminous books convey ; and therefor thou 
wouldst persuade us that all other ideas must have an arche- 
type ; and that God himself, the Demiurgos, would blunder 
and botch without one. Now can not God, by thy good leave, 
gentle Plato ! quite as easily form a thing as conceive it ? and 
execute it as readily at once as at twice ? Or hath he rather, 
in some slight degree, less of plastic power than of mental ? 
Seriously, if thou hast received these fooleries from the 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 119 

Egyptian priests, prythee, for want of articles more valuable 
to bring among us, take them back on thy next voyage, and 
change them against the husk of a pistachio dropt from the 
pouch of a sacred ape. 

Thy God is like thyself, as most men^s Gods are : he throws 
together a vast quantity of stuff, and leaves his workpeople to 
cut it out and tack it together, after their own fashion and 
fancy. These demons or genii are mischievous and fantastical 
imps : it would have been better if they had always sitten with 
their hands before them, or played and toyed with one another, 
like the young folks in the garden of Academus. As thou 
hast modified the ideas of those who went before thee, so those 
who follow thee will modify thine. The wiser of them will 
believe, and reasonably enough, that it is time for the Demi- 
urgos to lay his head upon his pillow, after heating his brains 
with so many false conceptions, and to let the world go on its 
own way, without any anxiety or concern. 

Beside, would not thy dialogues be much better and more 
interesting, if thou hadst given more variety to the characters, 
and hadst introduced them conversing on a greater variety of 
topics ? Thyself and Prodicus, if thou wouldst not disdain to 
meet him, might illustrate the nature of allegory, might explain 
to your audience where it can enter gracefully, and where it 
must be excluded : we should learn from you, perhaps, under 
whose guidance it first came into Greece : whether anyone has 
mentioned the existence of it in the poems of Orpheus and 
Musseus (now so lost that we possess no traces of them), or 
whether it was introduced by Homer, and derived from the 
tales and mythology of the East. Certainly he has given us 
for deities such personages as were never worshipt in our 
country ; some he found, I suspect, in the chrysalis state of 
metaphors, and hatched them by the warmth of his genius 
into allegories, giving them a strength of wing by which they 
were carried to the summit of Olympus. Euripides and 
Aristophanes might discourse upon comedy and tragedy, and 
upon that species of poetry which, though the earliest and 
most universal, was cultivated in Attica with little success 
until the time of Sophocles. 

PLATO. 

You mean the Ode. 

DIOGENES. 

I do. There was hardly a corner of Greece, hardly an 



120 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

ilet, where the children of Pallas were not called to school 
and challenged by choristers. 

PLATO. 

These disquisitions entered into no portion of my plan. 

DIOGENES. 

Rather say, ill-suited thy genius ; having laid down no plan 
whatever for a series of dialogues. School-exercises, or, if 
thou pleasest to call them so, disquisitions, require no such 
form as thou hast given to them, and they block up the inlets 
and outlets of conversation, which, to seem natural, should 
not adhere too closely to one subject. The most delightful 
parts both of philosophy and of fiction might have opened 
and expanded before us, if thou hadst selected some fifty or 
sixty of the wisest, most eloquent, and most facetious, and 
hadst made them exert their abilities on what was most at 
their command. 

PLATO, 

I am not certain that I could have given to Aristophanes 
all his gaiety and humour. 

DIOGENES. 

Art thou certain thou hast given to Socrates all his irony 
and perspicacity, or even all his virtue ? 

PLATO. 

His virtue I think I have gwen him fully. 

DIOGENES. 

Few can comprehend the whole of it, or see where it is 
separated from wisdom. Being a philosopher, he must have 
known that marriage would render him less contemplative 
and less happy, though he had chosen the most beautiful, the 
most quiet, the most obedient, and most affectionate woman 
in the world ; yet he preferred what he considered his duty as 
a citizen to his peace of mind. 

PLATO. 

He might hope to beget children in sagacity like himself. 

DIOGENES. 

He can never have hoped it at all, or thought about it as 
became him. He must have observed that the sons of medi- 
tative men are usually dull and stupid; and he might foresee 
that those philosophers or magistrates whom their father had 
excelled would be, openly or covertly, their enemies. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 121 



Here then is no proof of his prudence or his virtue. True 
indeed is your remark on the children of the contemplative ; 
and we have usually found them rejected from the higher 
offices, to punish them for the celebrity of their fathers. 

DIOGENES. 

Why didst not thou introduce thy preceptor arguing fairly 
and fully on some of these topics ? Wert thou afraid of dis- 
closing his inconsistencies ? A man to be quite consistent 
must live quite alone. I know not whether Socrates would 
have succeeded in the attempt ; I only know I have failed. 

PLATO. 

I hope, most excellent Diogenes, I shall not be accused of 
obstructing much longer so desirable an experiment. 

DIOGENES. 

I will bear with thee some time yet. The earth is an 
obstruction to the growth of seed ; but the seed can not grow 
well without it. "When I have done with thee, I will dismiss 
thee with my usual courtesy. 

There are many who marry from utter indigence of thought, 
captivated by the playfulness of youth, as if a kitten were 
never to be a cat ! Socrates was an unlikely man to have 
been under so sorrowful an illusion. Those among you who 
tell us that he married the too handy Xantippe for the purpose 
of exercising his patience, turn him from a philosopher into a 
fool. We should be at least as moderate in the indulgence of 
those matters which bring our patience into play, as in the 
indulgence of any other. It is better to be sound than hard, 
and better to be hard than callous. 

PLATO. 

Do you say that, Diogenes ? 

DIOGENES, 

I do say it ; and I confess to thee that I am grown harder 
than is well for me. Thou wilt not so easily confess that an 
opposite course of life hath rendered thee callous. Frugality 
and severity must act upon us long and uninterruptedly before 
they produce this effect : pleasure and selfishness soon produce 
the other. The red-hot iron is but one moment in sending up 
its fumes from the puddle it is turned into, and in losing its 
brightness and its flexibility. 



122 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

PLATO. 

I have admitted your definitions, and now I accede to your 
illustrations. But illustrations are pleasant merely ; and defi- 
nitions are easier than discoveries. 

DIOGENES. 

The easiest things in the world when they are made : never- 
theless thou hast given us some dozens, and there is hardly a 
complete or a just one on the list ; hardly one that any wench, 
watching her bees and spinning on Hymettus, might not have 
corrected. 

PLATO. 

As you did, no doubt, when you threw into my school the 
cock you had stript of its feathers. 

DIOGENES. 

Even to the present day, neither thou nor any of thy scholars 
have detected the fallacy. 

PLATO. 

We could not dissemble that our definition was inexact. 

DIOGENES. 

I do not mean that. 

PLATO. 

What then ? 

'DIOGENES. 

I would remark that neither thou nor thy disciples found 
me out. 

PLATO. 

We saw you plainly enough : we heard you too, crying 
Behold Plato's man ! 

DIOGENES. 

It was not only a reproof of thy temerity in definitions, but 
a trial of the facility with which a light and unjust ridicule of 
them would be received. 

PLATO. 

Unjust perhaps not, but certainly rude and vulgar. 

D^.DGENES. 

Unjust, I repeat it : because thy definition was of man as 
nature formed him : and the cock, when I threw it on the 
floor, was no longer as nature had formed it. Thou art 
accustomed to lay down as peculiarities the attributes that 
belong, equally or nearly, to several things or persons. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 123 



The characteristic is not always the definition, nor meant to 
be accepted for it. I have called tragedy b-qixorepiriararov^ 
'most delightful to the people/ and \}/vxa<yu>yLK(&TaTov, 'most 
agitating to the soul : ' no person can accuse me of laying 
down these terms as the definition of tragedy. The former is 
often as applicable to rat-catching, and the latter to cold- 
bathing. I have called the dog faXoiiaOes, c fond of acquiring 
information/ and fyikovofyov, c fond of wisdom ; * but I never 
have denied that man is equally or more. 

DIOGENES. 

Deny it then instantly. Every dog has that property ; every 
man has not : I mean the fyiXojAaOts. The (fiiXocrcxfiov is false 
in both cases : for words must be taken as they pass current 
in our days, and not according to any ancient acceptation. 
The author of the Margites says, 

ToV5' our au (TKaTTTTJpa 6eoi Qkcav ovt dporrjpa 
*Ovt dXXccs TL (TOCpOV. 

Here certainly the o-ocpos has no reference to the higher and 
intellectual powers, as with us, since he is placed by the poet 
among delvers and ploughmen. The compound word (j>ik6~ 
ao<fios did not exist when the author of Margites wrote ; and 
the lover of wisdom, in his days, was the lover of the country. 
Her aspirants, in ours, are quarreling and fighting in the 
streets about her; and nevertheless, while they rustle their 
Asiatic robes around them, leave her as destitute, as naked, 
and as hungry as they found her. 

PLATO. 

Did your featherless cock render her any service ? 

DIOGENES. 

Yes. 

PLATO. 

I corrected and enlarged the definition without your 
assistance. 

DIOGENES. 

Not without it : the best assistance is the first, and the first 
was the detection of insufficiency and error.. Thy addition 
was, ' that man has broad nails : ; now art thou certain that 
all monkeys have sharp and round ones ? I have heard the 
contrary • and I know that the mole has them broad and flat. 



124 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

PLATO. 

What wouldst thou say man is, and other animals are not ? 

DIOGENES. 

I would say, tying and malicious, 

PLATO. 

Because he alone can speak ; he alone can reflect. 

DIOGENES. 

Excellent reason ! If speech be the communication of 
what is felt, made by means of the voice, thinkest thou other 
creatures are mute? All that have legs, I am inclined to 
believe, have voices : whether fishes have, I know not. Thou 
wouldst hardly wish me to take the trouble of demonstrating 
that men he, both before their metamorphosis into philosophers 
and after : yet perhaps thou mayst wish to hear wherefor, if 
other animals reason and reflect (which is proved in them by 
apprehending mischief and avoiding it, and likewise by the 
exertion of memory), they are not also malicious. 

PLATO. 

Having kept in their memory an evil received, many of 
them evince their malice, by attacking long afterward those 
who did it. 

DIOGENES. 

This is not malice, in man or beast. Malice is ill-will 
without just cause, and desire to injure without any hope of 
benefiting from it. Tigers and serpents seize on the unwary, 
and inflict deadly wounds : tigers from sport or hunger, 
serpents from fear or hurt : neither of them from malice, 
neither of them from hatred. Dogs indeed and horses do 
acquire hatred in their domestic state : they had none origi- 
nally: they must sleep under man's roof before they share 
with him his high feeling; that high feeling which renders 
liim the destroyer of his own kind, and the devourer of his 
own heart. We are willing to consider both revenge and envy 
as much worse blemishes in the character than malice. Yet 
for one who is invidious there are six or seven who are 
malicious, and for one who is revengeful there are fifty. In 
revenge there must be something of energy, however short- 
breathed and indeterminate. Many are exempt from it 
because they are idle and forgetful ; more, because they are 
circumspect and timid ; but no tiling hinders the same people 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 125 

from being malicious. Envy, abominable as we call her, and 
as she is, often stands upon a richly-figured base, and is to be 
recognised only by the sadness with which she leans over the 
emblems of power and genius. The contracted heart of 
Malice can never swell to sadness. Seeing nothing that she 
holds desirable, she covets nothing; she would rather the 
extinction than the possession of what is amiable ; she hates 
high and low, bad and good, coldly pertinacious and lazily 
morose. 

Thou Plato, who hast cause to be invidious of not many, 
art of nearly all : and thy wit pays the fine, being rendered 
thereby the poorest I know in any Athenian ambitious of it. 

PLATO. 

If the fact be thus, the reason is different. 

DIOGENES. 

What is it then? 

PLATO. 

That every witticism is an inexact thought : that what is 
perfectly true is imperfectly witty : and that I have attended 
more sedulously and more successfully to verity. 

DIOGENES. 

Why not bring the simplicity of truth into the paths of life ? 
why not try whether it would look as becomingly in actions as 
in words ; in the wardrobe and at table as in deductions and 
syllogisms ? why not demonstrate to the youth of Athens that 
thou in good earnest canst be contented with a little ? 

PLATO. 

So I could, if the times required it. 

DIOGENES. 

They will soon; and we should at least be taught our 
rudiments, before a hard lesson is put into our hands. 

PLATO. 

This makes me think again that your grammatical know- 
ledge, Diogenes, is extensive. The plain and only sense 
of the second verse . . 

DIOGENES. 

What second verse ? Were we talking of any such things ? 

PLATO. 

Yes, just now. 



126 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

DIOGENES. 

I had forgotten it. 

PLATO. 

How ! forgotten the Margites ! The meaning of the words 
is, i nor fit for anything else/ 

Homer in like manner uses eidws very frequently, to indicate 
mere manual skill. The spirit of inquiry, the c/uAo'/xafles, we 
take upon ourselves with the canine attributes : we tali of 
indagating, of investigating, of questing. 

DIOGENES. 

I know the respect thou bearest to the dogly character, and 
can attribute to nothing else the complacency with which thou 
hast listened to me since I released thy cloak. If ever the 
Athenians, in their inconstancy, should issue a decree to 
deprive me of the appellation they have conferred on me, rise 
up, I pray thee, in my defence, and protest that I have not 
merited so severe a mulct. Something I do deserve at thy 
hands ; having supplied thee, first with a store of patience, 
when thou wert going without any about thee, although it is 
the readiest viaticum and the heartiest sustenance of human 
life ; and then with weapons from this tub, wherewith to drive 
the importunate cock before thee out of doors again. 

PLATO. 

My presence then may, after so generous and long a hospi- 
tality, be excused. 

DIOGENES. 

"Wait a little yet, to accept a few gifts and gratuities at 
parting. The Defence of Socrates comes out somewhat late. 
The style pleases me greatly more than in any of thy dialogues : 
truth is the chief thing wanting in it. 

PLATO. 

In what part ? For surely the main is well remembered by 
all the city. 

DIOGENES. 

Socrates, I am credibly informed, never called Meletus a 
strange man, as thou recordest, for accusing him of thinking 
the sun stone, the moon earth, instead of gods ; telling him 
before the judges that such an accusation ought rather to 
have been brought against Anaxagoras, whose treatise to this 
purport was sold at the theatre for a drachma. Never did 
Socrates say that he might fairly be laughed to scorn if he 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 127 

ever had countenanced so absurd a doctrine. Now, Plato, 
although in thy work on the Laws thou art explicit in thy 
declaration that the sun and moon are deities, Anaxagoras 
denied the fact, and Socrates never asserted it. In this 
misrepresentation of thine, regarding the friend of Pericles, 
there was little harm beyond the falsehood : for Anaxagoras 
was dead ; and hemlock might be growing on his grave, but 
could not reach his heart or even his extremities. When I 
was a youngster I often tried to throw a stone over the 
moon, unsuspicious that it was a goddess : had it been, she 
must be the best tempered of all in heaven, or she would have 
sent the stone back on my head for my impiety. My wonder 
was, that, although I clearly saw the stone ascend as high 
as the moon, and somewhat higher, it always fell on tins 
side. The moon seemed only to laugh at me ; and so did 
the girls who were reaping. Had they been philosophers, 
with any true religion about them, they would have made an 
Orpheus of me, and have torne me to pieces. But being of 
Sinope, not of Athens, they thought about nothing else than 
merriment at an idle pelter of the moon. 

PLATO. 

We may know more hereafter in relation to these matters. 

DIOGENES. 

Not, if philosophers are agreed that it is impious to inquire 
into them, which, as thou relatest, was the opinion of Socrates. 
Without sun and moon we have more gods than we know 
what to do with. If the greater are unable to manage us and 
keep us in order, sun and moon can help them but little. It is 
long before men apply to any good the things that lie before 
them. Air, fire, water, have been applied to new purposes 
from age to age : poets have seen dimly some of them : 
philosophers would extinguish the little lamps they carry; 
but not such philosophers as Anaxagoras. Common things, 
winch at present are brought into little or no use, will here- 
after be applied to many; above other common things, 
common sense. Socrates calls that forbidden winch, piling up 
syllogism on syllogism, and exerting the whole length of his 
tongue, he was unable to reach. Pythagoras,- as wise a man, 
Anaxagoras a wiser, were invited by Nature to investigate her 
secrets : when they were advancing too boldly, she gently 
pushed them back, but never threw the door abruptly in 



128 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

their faces ; it stands wide open stil. Socrates denounced as 
impious all physical speculations ; these the religious man, the 
only true philosopher, might find manifested to him through 
oracles and omens. If thy master, among his many acquire- 
ments, had acquired the faculty of speaking plainly, he would 
have spoken like Anaxagoras, whom, at least it must be 
conceded, he never had, as thou representest, the folly, the 
disingenuousness, the impudence to decry. 

PLATO. 

Did not the priestess of Apollo declare him to be the wisest 
of mankind ? 

DIOGENES. 

The priestess was an old woman, and the fumes were 
potent. I have never been able to find out on what occasion 
this oracle was delivered. Oracles are consulted by those 
who are the most interested. Surely not even a philosopher 
would be so impudent as to ask a god whether he was 
the wisest man upon earth. Nor are such the matters on 
which oracles are pronounced ; but future results of arduous 
undertakings. The story carries a falsehood on the face 
of it. 

PLATO. 

You are the first that ever doubted the fact, whatever may 
have been the occasion : there is a cloud of witnesses to its 
universal belief. 

DIOGENES. 

I never could see my way through a cloud of witnesses, 
especially in temples. Lies are as communicative as fleas ; 
and truth is as difficult to lay hold upon as air. 

PLATO. 

I feel the acuteness of the former simily ; and I wish I 
could controvert the latter. 

DIOGENES. 

Consider well the probability of such a declaration from 
Delphi. Would the people of Athens, religious as they are, 
ever have ventured to accuse of impiety, and to condemn to 
death for it, the very man whom an infallible God had so 
signalised ? If fifty ages and fifty nations had taken up this 
fable, I would reduce it to dust under my feet. 

PLATO. 

I dare not listen to such discourse. 



DIOGENES AND PLATO. 129 



Thou slialt ; were it only for variety. 

PLATO. 

I limited my discourse to the defence of Socrates : with 
such as Anaxagoras and Democritus we have nothing in 
common. But censuring Socrates as you do, you must surely 
want your usual modesty,, citizen of Sinope ! 

DIOGENES. 

Praise me then ; since, wanting it, I never took anyone's 
away. 

PLATO. 

Little should I now wonder to hear you call yourself as 
wise as he was. 

DIOGENES. 

Could he keep at home as I do ? Could he abstain from 
questioning and quibbling, to win the applause of boys and 
pedants ? Am I not contented in my own house here, over 
whose roof, standing on level ground, I cast my shadow. I 
pretend not to know the secrets of the lower regions or the 
upper : I let the Gods sit quiet, and they do the same by me. 
Hearing that there are three Furies, I have taken the word of 
the wise for it, and never have carried a link down below in 
search of a fourth. He found her up here. I neither envy 
him his discovery, nor wonder at the tranquility of his death. 
Wisdom is tripartite ; saying, doing, avoiding. 

PLATO. 

Mine, I must acknowledge, has been insufficient in the 
latter quality : but I hope to correct my fault in future. 

DIOGENES. 

On this particular I am not incredulous. Thou owest me 
too much ever to* let me smell thy beard again. From this 
humble and frugal house of mine thou shalt carry home whole 
truths, and none mutilated; intelligible truths, and none 
ambiguous. Probably I know not a quarter of thy writings • 
but, in the number I do know, I find more incongruous 
scraps of philosophy and religion, sweet, sour, and savoury, 
thrown into one stewing-pan, and simmering and bubbling, 
than my stomach can digest or my fingers separate. 

PLATO. 

Too encomiastic ! If I may judge by the fumes of the 

K 



130 DIOGENES AND PLATO. 

garlic, the stomach is surely strong : and, if another sense 
is equally faithful, the fingers are armed at all points. 

DIOGENES. 

Well spoken and truely. I have improved thee already, 
go thy way, and carry thy whole robe safe back. 

Diogenes Laertius, biographer of the Cynic, is among the most inelegant 
and injudicious writers of antiquity ; yet his book is highly valuable for 
the anecdotes it preserves. No philosopher or other man more abounded 
in shrewd wit than the philosopher of Sinope, whose opinions have been 
somewhat misunderstood, and whose memory hath suffered much injustice. 
One Diocles, and afterward Eubulides, mention him (it appears) as having 
been expelled from Sinope for counterfeiting money : and his biographer 
tells us that he has recorded it of himself. His words led astray these 
authors. He says that he marked false money : for an equivoke was ever 
the darling of Diogenes, and, by the marking of false money, he means only 
that he exposed the fallacies of pretenders to virtue and philosophy. Had 
he been exiled for the crime of forgery, Alexander of Macedon, we may 
well suppose, would not have visited him, would not have desired him to 
ask any favour he chose, would not have declared that if he were not 
Alexander, he would fain have been Diogenes. He did not visit him from 
an idle curiosity, for he had seen him before in his father's camp on his 
first invasion of Greece, where he was apprehended as a spy, and, being 
brought before the king, exclaimed, "I am indeed a spy; a spy of thy temerity 
and cupidity, who hazardest on the cast of a die thy throne and life." This 
is related by Plutarch in his Ethics. Some men may think forgery no very 
hainous crime, but all must think it an act of dishonesty ; and kings (whose 
moral scale is nowhere an exact one) would be likely to hold it in greater 
reprobation than anything but treason and insurrection. Had the 
accusation been true, or credited, or made at the time, the Athenians 
would not have tolerated so long his residence among them, severe as he 
was on their manners, and peculiarly contemptuous and contumelious 
toward the orators and philosophers ; Plato for instance, and afterward 
Demosthenes. Here however we may animadvert on the inaccuracy of 
attributing to him the reply, when somebody asked him what he thought 
of Socrates as having seen him, ' that he thought him a madman.' Diogenes 
was but twelve years old at the death of Socrates, and did not leave 
Sinope til long after. The answer, we may conceive, originated from the 
description that Plato in many of his dialogues had given of his master, 
Among the faults of Plato he ridiculed his affectation of new words 
unnecessary and inelegant; for instance his coinage of rpaire^oTrjs and 
Kva6oT7)s, which Plato defended very frigidly, telling him that, although he 
had eyes to see a cup and a table, he had not understanding for cuppeity 
and tableity ; and it indeed must be an uncommon one. Plato himself, the 
most invidious of the Greek writers, says that he was another Socrates, but 
a mad one ; meaning (no doubt) that he was a Socrates when he spoke 
generally, a mad one when he spoke of him. Among his hearers was 
Phocion : a fact which alone would set aside the tale of his adversaries, a 



XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 131 

thousand times repeated by their readers, about his public indulgence in 
certain immoralities which no magistrature would tolerate. 

Late in life he was taken by pirates, and sold to Xeniades the Corinthian, 
whose children he educated, and who declared that a good genius had 
entered his house in Diogenes. Here he died. A contest arose, to whom 
among his intimates and disciples should be allowed the distinction of 
supplying the expenses of his funeral : nor was it settled til the fathers of 
his auditors and the leaders of the people met together, and agreed to bury 
him at the public charge at the gate of the Isthmus : the most remarkable 
spot in Greece, by the assemblage of whose bravest inhabitants it was made 
glorious, and sacred by the games in honour of her gods. 



XENOPHON AND CYEUS THE YOUNGER 



Xenophon, I have longed for an opportunity of conversing 
with thee alone, on matters in which thou excitest my admira- 
tion. According to report thou wert the disciple of Socrates 
the mage, whom the Athenians condemned to drink hemlock, 
because he had a genius of his own. 

XENOPHON. 

It is true, Cyrus, I was. 

CYRUS. 

Verily, wonderful man, thou must be the best farrier and 
hunter in Greece; and, thinking on thee, I have oftentimes 
wished in my heart that so deserving a country as thy Attica, 
which is not destitute of wolves, polecats, and foxes, had, for 
every one of them, a leopard, a lion, and a tiger. 

XENOPHON. 

son of Darius, king of kings ! the gods do not bestow 
all then gifts upon one country ; or, having bestowed them, it 
seemetli good unto their divine majesties that mortals should 
counteract their beneficence. We no longer have those valiant 
creatures among us ; to which privation I attribute it chiefly 
that we possess more eloquence indeed and learning than those 
who have them, but less bodily activity and strength. 

CYRUS. 

There are other and better reasons, Xenophon, for these 

K 2 



132 XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 

things. You are unbelievers in the true religion, and have 
sunk through your idleness on the bosom of false gods : you 
clasp graven images, falling at the feet of such as have any. 

XENOPHON. 

O Cyrus, I have observed that the authors of good make 
men very bad as often as they talk much about them ; whether 
it be to punish us for our presumption, or merely to laugh at 
us, I do not know ; nor have I ever heard my master Socrates 
discourse upon the question. Certain it appears to me from 
whatever I have read, that the powerful and the wise lose both 
their power and their wisdom the moment they enter into this 
dim and sacred inclosure ; just as, on entering the apartment 
of the women in your country, you lay aside both slipper and 
turban, and cover the head with only the extremity of the 
robe. 

CYRUS. 

We will try to keep ourselves no less cool and orderly on 
our argument, if thou wilt come into it with me. And now 
inform me, most excellent, on what difference in religion or 
government you Greeks denominate all other nations, and 
among the rest even us, barbarians ? 

XENOPHON. 

If, Cyrus, I may (as I believe I may) rely on thy wisdom, 
thy modesty and moderation, I will answer the question to the 
best of my abilities. 

CYRUS. 

I, who aspire to the throne of my ancestors, can not be 
angry at the voice of truth, nor offended that a guest should 
execute my wishes. 

XENOPHON. 

Courtesy and gentleness distinguish the Persians from other 
mortals. They are less subject to cruelty than any race among 
men, unless sceptres lie across their path. Now, Cyrus, those 
things must surely be the worst of things which render the 
most humane of men the most inhumane. I deviate a little 
way from the main question, like my teacher, for the purpose 
of asking a preparatory one, which may lead me back again, 
and enable me to conduct thee smoothly and pleasantly. Pray 
inform me, Cyrus, since I am about to be a leader in thy 
army, what are thy orders if I should happen to intercept the 
concubines of any hostile satrap ? 



XENOPHON AND CY11US THE YOUNGER. 133 

CYRUS. 

Xenophon, keep thy hands, thy eyes, thy desires, away 
from them, as becomes thy gravity of wisdom and purity of 
heart, expressed in a countenance where we discern and venerate 
the beauty of seriousness and reserve. 

XENOPHON. 

Cyrus, I am a hunter, and, being so, a deviser of strata- 
gems, and may perchance take others than concubines. I dare 
not utter what labors in my bosom : in vain fidelity excites 
and urges me. 

CYRUS. 

Speak, best Xenophon ! 

XENOPHON. 

If then destiny should cast down before me the horse of thy 
brother Artaxerxes, and the chances of war, or Mars after due 
sacrifice, should place him in my power, what is my duty ? 

CYRUS. 

Canst not thou, having in turn with others of thy country- 
men the command of ten thousand Greeks, do thy duty 
without consulting me, in cases which, being unforeseen, are 
discretionary ? 

XENOPHON. 

The fall of a king is terrible. 

CYRUS, 

The rebound is worse. When your Saturn fell from heaven, 
did any God or mortal lend a hand to raise him up again ? 

XENOPHON. 

It were impiety to contend against Jupiter. 

CYRUS. 

It were madness to contend against Destiny. According to 
your fables, Saturn came first ; then came Jupiter. The same 
divine right of expelling and occupying will be asserted as 
occasion may require. But Destiny saw the order of tilings 
rise, and sees it continue : and gods before her are almost as 
little and weak as we are : she teaches them to repeat her words 
and obliges them to execute her will. If thou hast any wisdom, 
as thou surely hast, disciple of Socrates the mage, never 
ask me another question on such a contingency : but answer 
me now, I entreat thee, about the strange word barbarian, at 



134 XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 

which (I hear) there are satraps and royalets who take offence 
when you apply it to them. 

XENOPHON. 

Attribute not the invention of the word to us, Cyrus ! 
I have been as studious to know the derivation of it, as thou 
art ; for it is not Greek. On the return of Plato (of whom 
perhaps thou hast heard some mention) from Egypt, I learned 
from him* that the expression was habitual with the priests of 
that country, whence we, who have borrowed much knowledge 
from the Egyptians, borrowed also this term. They apply it 
as we do, to all strangers indiscriminately : but originally it 
signified those only who live nearest to them, and whom on 
that account, as is customary with every nation in the world, 
they hated most. The Africans to the westward are called by 
themselves ber-her, a generic name, and probably of honorable 
import. 

CTKUS. 

Xenophon, thou art indeed a treasury of wisdom : and in 
addition to it, I pray thee, do the gods, as I have heard, 
manifest to thee future events in dreams ? 

XENOPHON. 

Some they have truly laid open unto me. 

CTKUS. 

Couldst not thou, most wonderful, pray to them (not 
telling them that I said anything about the matter) to give 
thee one about the success of my arms ? Eor our own pure 
religion does not allow us to expect or to pray for such an 
intervention. 

XENOPHON. 

If we had an oracle near, I would consult it. Eor dreams 
usually are confined to the eventual good or evil of the 
dreamer ; although there are instances to the contrary ; but in 
these instances the dreams fall upon minds peculiarly gifted, 
and properly fitted for their reception. 

CYEUS. 

1 have asked the Sun several times for counsel ; and yet I 

* Plato says nothing on the subject: it seems probable that in this 
manner the expression came first among the Greeks, who would otherwise, 
we may suppose, have taken the name of some nearer and more ferocious 
tribe. 



XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 135 

never could collect out of his radiance any certain sign or 
token. Only once it was attended by a lark, suddenly 

" Springing from crystal step to crystal step 
In the bright air, where none can follow her." 

Thus one of our old poets, in a volume laid up at Persepolis, 
describes her. The lark herself, and the recollection of the 
lines, comforted and animated me greatly; first the bird, 
merry and daring; then the brightness of the air; and lastly, 
but principally, the words " that she was rising where none 
could follow her." This must certainly mean myself : for who 
can suppose that Artaxerxes at that moment saw another lark 
doing the like, or remembered the same verses, which came 
upon me like a voice inspired ? 

XENOPHON. 

Although larks are not strictly birds of augury, like eagles 
and vultures, and swans and herons, and owls and chickens, 
yet in this country, and against the Sun, and upon such an 
occasion, the appearance hath its weight with me, O Cyrus ! 
However I would not neglect to sharpen the scimitar, and to 
see that the horses be well exercised and have plenty of oats 
and barley in the manger, and that their manes be carefully 
combed, lest the adversary think us disorderly and unprovided, 
and. inclined to flight. For the immortal gods have often 
changed their minds upon finding us too confident and secure, 
or too negligent and idle, and have enlightened ours, to our 
cost, with a new and contrary interpretation of sentences 
uttered by their oracles. 

CYRUS. 

On reflecting a little, I think these oracles in general are 
foolish tilings. . 

XENOPHON. 

I wish, blameless Cyrus, that such a word had never 
overflown the enclosure of thy teeth, as the divine Homer 
says. 

CYRUS. 

I wonder, most intelligent and thoughtful Xenophon, that 
you Greeks, so few as there are of you, should .worship such a 
number of gods. 

XENOPHON. 

And I, Cyrus, that you who have occasion for so many, 



136 XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 

and particularly just at present, should adore but one. The 
Sun (I would speak it without offence) is nothing but an orb 
of fire ; although, as some say, of a prodigious magnitude, 
hardly less than the Peloponnese. 



I once heard from a slave, a scholar of Democritus, that it 
is many hundred times greater than the earth. 

XENOPHON. * 

I seldom laugh, and ought never at insanity, and least of all 
at this. Alas, poor Greek ! when he lost his freedom he lost 
his senses. immortal Gods ! may my countrymen at no 
time be reduced to that calamity, which nothing but this can 
mitigate. 

CYRUS. 

He added that, immense as is the glorious orb, it is only a 
dewdrop on the finger of God, shining from it under the light 
of his countenance, as he waves his paternal blessing over the 
many-peopled world. 

XENOPHON. 

This is poetry, but oriental. Strange absurdity ! when 
Jupiter is barely a foot taller than I am; as may be well 
imagined by his intermingling with our women, and without 
inconvenience on either side : at least I have heard of none 
recorded by the priests. He has indeed a prodigious power of 
limb, and his expansion at need is proportionate to his 
compactness. 

CYRUS. 

Give me thy sentiments, freely and entirely. 

XENOPHON. 

I can not but marvel then, Cyrus, at the blindness of the 
Persians. There is no other great nation, at all known to us, 
that does not acknowledge a plurality and variety of Gods ; 
and this consent, so nearly universal, ought to convince the 
ingenuous and unprejudiced. I see the worst consequences 
to a government in countenancing the adoration of a single 
one, to the exclusion and mortification of the rest. 



Perhaps to such a loose fabric as a republic. 



XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 137 

XEXOPHON. 

In a monarchy no less. Power hath here too its gradations ; 
the monarch,, the mages, and the satraps. 

CYRUS. 

Do not you see at once the beauty of this form? No 
government is harmonious or rational without three estates; 
none decorous or stabile. The tin-one must have legs ; but the 
legs must never stand uppermost : the king bears upon the 
niages, they bear upon the floor, or people. The king reserves 
to himself omnipotence ; he grants to his mages omniscience ; 
to his people, in the body, omnipresence. In this manner he 
divides himself ; but all is one. Where power is so well 
poised, in case of urgency we might impose taxes to the 
amount of nearly a tenth, and rarely hear a murmur in the 
land. If you, the magistrates of free Greeks, were to demand 
a fifteenth of the property in Attica for the purposes of 
government, the people would stone you. Now unquestionably 
that regimen is the best which hath constantly the most power 
over them ; as that is the best riding by which the horse is 
managed the most easily and quietly, in even places and 
uneven. Nothing is truer or plainer. If we had as many 
gods and temples as you have, and if our deities and priests 
had as good appetites, our armies must be smaller, our horses 
leaner, and there would be more malignity and discord in the 
provinces. For all sects, all favorers I mean of particular 
gods and goddesses, are united in one sentiment, that their 
deities are equally fond of picking bones and breaking them. 

XEXOPHOX. 

Our religion is most beautiful. 

CYRUS. 

Extremely so pn the outside. In this external beauty, as in 
that of women when it is extreme, there is little expression, 
little sense. Our ritual is the best that can be devised for any 
hot climate. In order to adore the Sun at his rising, we must 
(it is needless to say) rise early. This is the time of day when 
the mind and body are most active, and most labour can . be 
performed both by men and cattle. Hence agriculture 
flourishes among us. Cleanliness, the consequence of our 
ablutions, is another spring of activity and health. We 
possess large sandy plains, which never would be cultivated 
unless they produced myrrh, benzoin, lavender, and other 



138 XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 

odours ; the only sacrifices we make to God. The earth offers 
them to her Creator where she hath nothing else to offer ; and 
he receives with a paternal smile, in these silent downs, remote 
from groves, from cities and from temples, her innocent 
oblations, her solitary endearments, her pure breath. I do not 
complain that the Boeotians kill a bull for the same purpose ; 
but a bull is that to which others beside gods and priests 
could sit down at table : and the richer plains of Boeotia would 
be cultivated whether Jupiter ate his roast beef or not. 

XENOPHON. 

There are many reasons, Cyrus, politically speaking, for 
your religion ; but it is not founded on immutable truth, nor 
supported by indubitable miracles. 

CYRUS. 

"What things are those ? 

XENOPHON. 

I could mention several, attested by thousands. Those of 
Bacchus, who traversed your country, are remembered stil 
among you : but as Apollo is the God from whom at this 
crisis we may hope a favorable oracle, I would represent to 
you his infancy, his flight in the arms of Latona, and his 
victory over the serpent : all as evident as that he sits above 
us arrayed in light, and is worshipped by you, Cyrus, 
although in ignorance of his godhead. 



I have heard about these things : and since perhaps we 
may consult his oracle, I will not question his power or deity 
until that is over. About the event I have more curiosity 
than inquietude, knowing the force of legitimacy on the minds 
of men. 

Why dost thou sigh, my friend ? do I appear to thee light, 
irresolute, inconstant ? 

XENOPHON. 

Not thou, Cyrus • but thy evil station. Nothing is so 
restless as royalty : not air, nor ocean, nor fire : nothing can 
content or hold it. Certainties are uninteresting and sating 
to it; uncertainties are solicitous and sad. In its weakness 
it ruins many, in its strength more. Thou, Cyrus, art the 
most intelligent of kings, and wilt be (let me augur it) the 
most potent. Think that the immortal gods have placed 



XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 139 

thee on thy eminence only as their sentinel, whose watch is 
long and wide, stationing thee at the principal gate in the 
encampment of mankind. Great is the good or evil that is 
about to flow far and near under thee. 

CYRUS. 

Far and near ! These words, I think, are rather ill placed, 
by one who was the disciple of Socrates the mage. They 
have however their meaning, their propriety, and, in thy eyes, 
their right order. Thou, Xenophon, I perceive, wouldst 
wish to penetrate into my thoughts relating to the Athenians-: 
1 have already penetrated into theirs. I know that in sound 
policy you never should let an ally whom you have served be 
greater than yourselves, if you can prevent it ; and that those 
whom you assist, like those whom you attack, should come 
off the worse for it in the end. Individuals whom you 
succour in private life may sometimes be grateful ; kings 
never are. They will become of an unfriendly temper toward 
you, were it only to prove to others, and to persuade them- 
selves, that they were powerful and flourishing enough to 
have done without you. 

If the victory should be mine, as can not be doubted . . 
I being born the son of a king, Artaxerxes not . . there is no 
danger that so small a people as the Athenians should attempt 
to divide the kingdom, or to compromise it in any way 
between us : nor would I suffer it : but Policy is my 
voucher that I will assist you against your enemies : in such 
a manner however as to provide that you shall always have 
some, and dangerous enough at least to attract your notice. 
I say these words to you in pure confidence. To a friend 
here speaks a friend ; to a wise man here speaks no simple 
one. 

XENOPHON. 

If you would worship, Cyrus, the gods of Greece, I 
should be the more confident of success. 

CYRUS. 

I have indeed at times, to a certain degree, a faith in 
auguries, in which I know the Greeks are expert : but 
although your religion is in her youth, your gods are as 
avaricious as old age could make them. Every religion that 
starts up, beyond Persia, takes only as much truth to stand 
upon as will raise her safely to men's purses. The Egyptian 



140 XENOPHON AND CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 

priests have extensive lands : Attica is poorer in soil : there it 
is requisite to have oracles too and sacrifices, gold and cattle, 
oil and milk, wax and honey. If this religion should be 
succeeded by another, as it must be when the fraud is laid 
open, the populace will follow those enthusiasts who threw 
down the images of the gods, and will help them the next 
morning to raise up others in the same places, or even those 
elsewhere, differing but in name. Pride will at first put on 
the garment of Humility ; and soon afterward will Humility 
raise up her sordid baldness out of Pride's. Change in rituals 
is made purely for lucre, and, under the name of Reformation, 
comes only to break up a virgin turf or to pierce into an 
unexplored mine. Religion with you began in veneration for 
those who delivered you from robbers : it will end in the 
discovery that your temples have been ever the dens of them. 
But in our hopes we catch at straws ; the movement of a 
feather shakes us ; the promise of a priest confirms us. 

Let us now go to the stables : I have intelligence of a 
noble tiger, scarcely three days' hard riding from us. The 
peasant who found the creature shall be exalted in honour, 
and receive the government of a province. 

XENOPHOX. 

Is the beast a male or female, to the best of his knowledge ? 

CYRUS. 

A female : she was giving milk to her young ones. On 
perceiving the countryman, she drew up her feet gently, and 
squared her mouth, and rounded her eyes, slumberous with 
content ; and they looked, he says, like sea-grottoes, obscurely 
green, interminably deep, at once awakening fear and stilling 
and compressing it. 

XENOPHON. 

' Portunate he escaped her ! We might have lost a fine day's 
hunting in ignorance of her lair. 

CYRUS. 

He passed away gently, as if he had seen nothing ; and she 
lay still, panting. Come, thou shalt take thy choice, 
wonderful Xenophon, of my spears. 



ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON, 141 



ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON". 



XENOPHON. 

Hail, Alcibiades ! Welcome art thou to the Athenian 
who hath retired from the contentions and turmoils of Athens, 
to spend his latter days among these hills and woodlands. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Hail also, in return, Xenophon to thee ! Long life, 
and sound health for the enjoyment of it ! Thou wast always 
a lover of the chase, of which there is none within our Attic 
territory; and of whatever else is manly, of which there is but 
little. 

XENOPHON. 

My old pursuits are indeed not wanting here. "We are, as 
thou discernest, under the ridges of Taygetos; which are 
reflected at this eventime with more than their own grandeur 
on the broad Eurotas. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Graciously and hospitably am I received by the most illus- 
trious of the Athenians, under whose command it would have 
been my glory to have fought. But, pardon my interrogation 
when I diffidently ask thee, in the name of all the gods and 
demigods, why thou withdrewest thy right-hand so suddenly 
and abruptly. 

XENOPHON. 

Wait, Alcibiades, until the servants have brought the salt 
water. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Infinite and immortal thanks, most considerate of mankind! 
but I never drink it salt. 

XENOPHON. 

Of a certainty no such beverage is proposed to thee. Chiaii 
wine is far preferable. But, unless I see thee duly lustrated, I 
dare not touch thy hand. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Thine own, Xenophon, hath done bolder tilings repeatedly. 



142 ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 

It would have prostrated the monarch of the Medes and 
Persians, the king of kings. 

XENOPHON. 

Surely, had the gods so willed it. But behold, here comes 
the vase of water ; here also the salt, gift of Poseidon to the 
human race, and virgin oil, strengthener and purifier, gift of 
the virgin goddess. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Pleasant to the hand, after holding the bridle so many hours 
in the heat of the day, are truly all these appliances ; excepting 
the salt perhaps. 

XENOPHON. 

Precisely the one thing needful . . Remember, Alcibiades, 
the statues of Hermes, which it is believed, but believed 
(I hope) erroneously, were disfigured by thee. If it be true 
(and pardon my fears) lustration in this fortunate house may 
be accepted in some sort as expiatory . . Grant it, ye gods ! 
and especially thou, son of Maia, grant it, I beseech thee ! 
Methinks the dogs are howling ominously in the courtyard. 
"Whether it portend good or evil, will perhaps be manifested 
unto me in my dreams this night. Meanwhile, let me 
propitiate the Blessed by a libation . . And now, Alcibiades, 
the divine thing having been performed, tell me, are the girls 
and the youths and the philosophers as fond of thee as ever ? 
Do they play as formerly with thy crisp glossy curls, so 
delicate and umbrageous? Do they attempt to make thee 
angry by applying the odious flute to thy lips, and threatening 
a worse infliction on thy refusal to blow it? . . cruel 
Summer that absorbest Spring ! thou deservest that Autumn 
should wither all thy flowers . . Youth is a precious thing, 
O Alcibiades, and I would rather be the possessor of it than of 
nearly all my dogs and half my farms. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Our teacher Socrates was entirely of the same opinion in 
regard to its value ; but then indeed he had no land where- 
with to make the barter ; and no such an inmate and confident 
as that grave, sagacious old hound, that soothsayer in the 
courtyard, whose language methinks is unambiguous and 
impressive. 

XEXOPHON. 

Thou mockest inconsiderately, I am loth to say impiously, 



ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 143 

the admonitions sent us from above through the brute creation. 
The wisest men that ever existed upon earth have implicitly 
believed in them. If birds foretell us events, and guide us 
by their voices and their flight, surely those animals may as 
reasonably be listened to winch have spent their lives with us, 
and know our habitudes and tempers, our desires and imper- 
fections. But, alas ! there are men in the present times who 
doubt whether an image of Pallas ever brandished a spear ; 
whether Aphrodite ever smiled on her worshiper; whether 
Here ever frowned with indignation on the wife who had 
violated her vows • whether Apollo flayed Marsyas for impious 
presumption ; whether the marble brow of Zeus or Poseidon 
ever sweated. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Incredulous men indeed ! sheer atheists ! I myself have 
known miscalled philosophers, who doubted, or pretended to 
doubt, whether Pallas sprang in full growth and complete 
armature from the forehead of Zeus. 

XEXOPHOX. 

Possibly this may be allegorical : I would neither say nor 
deny it ; nor willingly entertain the question. Hesitation and 
awe become us in the presence of the gods ; resolution 
and courage in presence of mortal men . . Cavillers ! they 
might even object to the recorded fact, that Bacchus was 
inclosed in the thigh of his father for safety, and cut out from 
it in due season. 

ALCIBIADES. 

His father would have afforded him a residence more com- 
modious to both parties, had he recollected his own, at nearly 
the same age, among the Nymphs of Crete. Eeadily do I 
believe that both Zeus and Poseidon sweated : Zeus, when the 
Titans were almost as bad toward him as if they had been, one 
and all, his own fathers ; and Poseidon, when the flaming car 
of Apollo was within a hair's-breadth of his beard. But 
possibly it was only the statues that were in question, and not 
the gods personally. 

XEXOPHOX. 

Verily, Alcibiades, in the truly religious mind there is no 
difference whatsoever. Zeus is omnipresent, but more particu- 
larly existent within Ms image. And, when his votaries have 
knelt before him, he sometimes hath nodded affirmatively, 



144 ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 

sometimes negatively. Aphrodite herself, who listens in 
general more complacently, hath been known to turn quite 
round. 

ALCIBIADES. 

What did she refuse by this extraordinary tergiversation ? 

XENOPHON. 

To listen. 

ALCIBIADES. 

I have always found that Aphrodite is best disposed toward 
those who are least importunate. Her ears were as nigh to 
the supplicant as before. Neither would I have left her until 
I had found her placable. 

XENOPHON. 

Thou speakest now discreetly and devoutly, as becomes the 
scholar of Socrates. 

ALCIBIADES. 

There are some, I grieve to say it, who doubt his discretion ; 
many, his devotion. 

XENOPHON. 

His last command ought to have given those sceptics the 
most complete satisfaction in that matter. The cock, I hope 
and trust, was duly sacrificed : otherwise, ye may expect ere 
long another plague within your city. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Certainly the offence would deserve it. 

XENOPHON. 

Asclepius is among the most beneficent of the Immortals, 
yet he demands his dues. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Our teacher was accused of impiety, and of corrupting the 
youth of Athens. Pious men have lately turned the tide, and 
stand ready and alert to take all the youth into their own 
hands and all their little sins into their own bosoms. They 
come with authority, they tell us. 

XENOPHON. 

With whose ? 

ALCIBIADES. 

A priest's, whom they have chosen and appointed from their 
own body. 



ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 145 

XENOPHON. 

So ! they give the authority first and then receive it ? 

ALCIBIADES. 

It seerns so. But they say that a god always guides them 
in their choice. 

XEXOPHON. 

Then the object of their choice must always be pure, bene- 
ficent, and consistent. But is it possible that a mortal, who 
believes in the existence of any god, should assume that god's 
nature and exercise his authority ? The worst atheists are not 
those who deny the existence of a Deity, but those who 
arrogate to themselves the attributes. Every man must be 
conscious of his dailv wants and weaknesses, common alike to 
him and to all his fellow creatures. And if it were in the 
nature of things that his vanity should render him blind to 
them, or that his presumption should impell him to seize with 
avidity what the imbecile or the wicked may offer, yet there are 
hours of repentance and of remorse ; there are lights brought by 
invisible hands into the midnight chamber ; and there is an 
account-book laid by them on his breast, of insufferable weight 
until he rises to open it, and even less tolerable when he 
peruses its contents. 

ALCIBIADES. 

The world is occupied, Xenophon, and occupied almost 
exclusively, by knaves who deceive and by fools who are 
deceived. Our nurses lull us to sleep by their cant ; other 
old women take us out of their arms and prolong it by their 
incantations. 

XENOPHON. 

Whether in these there be efficacy, or none, I would not 
here inquire. But supposing a hierophant such as thou hast 
represented to me,' with power unlimited and divine, and equal 
benevolence, he must be able and willing to compose all the 
differences of mankind, and to diffuse universal peace and 
goodwill. Do those under him preach such doctrine ? 

ALCIBIADES. 

Some of them do. Indeed I believe it is to be found in the 
holy books, which all of them profess to read and -to be guided 
by. However, the universal goodwill is confined to their own 
peculiar sect's universality. Benevolent as they profess them- 
selves to be, they have been known to shut up young persons 



146 ALCIBIADES A1S T D XENOPIION. 

in the dark, as we shut up quails, and to keep them all their 
lifetime in such a situation. The refractory or incredulous 
they lash and famish. Those who only laugh at them, or 
refuse to be handled by them, or recalcitrate at their caresses, 
they threaten with Tartarus and Cerberus and Phlegethon and 
the Furies. 

XENOPHON. 

Comminations such as these are against the laws. Intimi- 
dation is not for men, but for children ; and the parent is the 
only judge in the court. Religious men show us the way to the 
gods, but never drag us by the throat to them, nor fire us as 
we do horses to correct the bad humours and to increase the 
speed. But who and whence, Alcibiades, are these priests ? 

ALCIBIADES. 

Egyptian mostly. Even Athenians are beginning to incul- 
cate their dogmas, together with other oriental superstitions, 
pretending that, as they are the most ancient, they are also 
for this reason the most venerable, and that our own religion 
is only a cutting or slip from theirs, much withered and 
dwarfed by transplantation. Isis is striding up rapidly to the 
Parthenon ; and some sagacious ones smell the sludge of the 
Nile, and dream of its inundating the Ilyssus. 

XENOPHON. 

saviour Zeus ! protectress Pallas ! avert this dire 
calamity ! Return ye also, twin sons of Leda, from your 
beneficent and warning stars ; stand again on the confines of 
your country and defend her ! If Athens falls, Sparta falls 
too. Civilisation and manliness are carried down the same 
torrent, and courage makes vain efforts in the dark. 
Incredible ! that men deriding the sophist, denouncing the 
philosopher, contemning the institutions of our city, defying 
its enactments, should embrace the most humiliating and 
emasculating of Egyptian superstitions ! 

ALCIBIADES. 

Many have gone over into Egypt, and have thought them- 
selves . as wise as Pythagoras, or Herodotus, or Plato, for 
having made the same voyage. Some indeed have found 
such favour with the priesthood of that country, as to have 
received a scale of a crocodile, a tail of an ichneumon, or a 
feather of an ibis. Eew of them however are disposed to 



ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 147 

shave their crowns until the hair is thinner and greyer, 
apprehensive that they might be less efficient in bringing over 
the flexible sex to embrace their tenets. 

XENOPHON. 

Where priests have much influence, the gods have little ; 
and where they are numerous and wealthy, the population is 
scanty and miserably poor. War may be, and certainly is, 
destructive ; but war, as thou well knowest, if it cuts off 
boughs and branches, yet withers not the trunk. Priests, 
like ants, corrode and corrupt whatever they enter. Consider 
how potent was Egypt in the reign of her king Sesostris, 
when the military, for ever in action, kept the priesthood 
to its own duties and subordinate. Consider what she after- 
ward became when the helmet was less honoured than the 
tonsure. Cambyses overran her fertile regions, throwing 
down the images of gods and heroes, under which, it is 
probable, Menelaus, holding the hand of Helen, stood in 
amazement at their majesty and antiquity. Unconscious that 
he was about to meet another Memnon on the banks of the 
Scamander, he gazed intently on the tranquil features of the 
hero who had held his station for ages by the Pyramid. No 
long period before the invasion of Greece, which ended with 
such disaster and shame to the barbarian, the monuments of 
Egypt, too solid to be overthrown, were mutilated and effaced ; 
even the records of her ancient glory were obliterated. The 
season of peace is indeed a happy season ; and sorrowful is 
it to see a mother and her daughters in the field all day 
without a stronger arm to help them in their labour. Yes, 
happy is the season of peace even to men; but it is only 
when strenuous toil hath preceded a harvest which without 
industry and forethought must be unproductive. Whatever 
nation supposes that peace is the greatest of blessings, will 
enjoy none; and peace itself will remain with it more uncer- 
tainly and precariously than any. What hath rendered Sparta 
powerful and prosperous ? not her priests, nor even the 
Dioscuri, (with reverence be it spoken !) her patrons and 
protectors, but prudent kings, valiant citizens, disciplined 
soldiers, dutiful wives, virtuous mothers and maidens, who 
breathe courage into the heart before it beats to iove. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Religions that blunt the sword and emasculate the soldier 

L 2 



148 ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 

level the road for despotism. When I hear the sound of drum 
and trumpet let it not be Cybele's. 

XENOPHON. 

Powerful as is Cybele, and mother of the gods, the manlier 
Greeks erect no temples and offer no sacrifices or prayers to 
her : enough of honour to be mother of the gods. Pallas 
and Ares we supplicate. 

ALOIBIADES. 

Believe me, those importations from Egypt will presently 
bring toward our market-place no welcome customers from 
Macedon. 

XENOPHON. 

Philip, king of that country, is politic and warlike. 

ALCIBIADES. 

He is reported to be given to drunkenness. 

XENOPHON. 

Drunken men often imagine vain things, and sometimes 
dreadful ones. Martial order I have seen among them, such, 
my friend, as we soberer could with difficulty extinguish. 
Although the Macedonians are addicted to conviviality and 
indulge somewhat largely in wine, do not fancy that they 
are in the daily habitude of such excesses. They rise early, 
which habitual drunkards never do : and many hours of every 
day are spent in the habitual exercise of arms, not always 
singly, nor by twos and threes, but oftener in divisions of the 
phalanx. Sometimes the whole phalanx is ranged in order, 
performs its evolutions, and remains in the field the greater 
part of the morning. Moreover the king of Macedon hath 
archers and slingers from among his tributaries and allies. 
Yariety of arms hath frequently been disastrous to armies 
well disciplined, but ill prepared to encounter them. We 
may despise the barbarians at a distance ; but there are places 
and occurrences where they are far from despicable. Be sure 
the faces of the Macedonians are not always turned northward. 
The fountain of Dirce may tremble and dry up under the 
hoof of the Thessalian charger ; and he may stamp and paw, 
to make it sufficiently turbid for his draught, the clear Ismenos. 
Sorrow and shame and indignation seize and agitate me when 
I think it possible (0 ye gods avert it !) that in our very 
birthplace, in the city of Theseus, of Codrus, and of Solon, 



ALCIBIADES AND XENOPHON. 149 

Pallas may lower her spear, and lie who shakes the earth may- 
drop his trident. And shall these locusts from Egypt settle 
in the holy places where they stood ? 

ALCIBIADES. 

Nothing more likely. The schools of Pythagoras, no longer 
modest, no longer taciturn, are sending over to us from the 
middle of Italy thriftless though busy swarms. 

XENOPHON. 

Religion and irreligion seem to prevail by turns. Better 
an empty cup than a cup of poison. 

ALCIBIADES. 

It appears to me, Xenophon, who indeed have thought 
but little and incuriously about the varieties of religion, that 
whichever is the least intrusive and dogmatical is the best. 
All are ancient; as ancient as man's fears and wishes : the 
gods would all be kind enough if nations would not call upon 
them to scatter and exterminate their enemies. Hitherto it 
has been our privilege to worship them in our own way, whether 
in the temple or round the domestic hearth ; grateful to those 
of our family who taught us how best to propitiate them, but 
indignant at any impudent intruder from Samothrace or from 
Taurida who exacted bloody sacrifices. And indeed at the 
present day we are not highly pleased at the near prospect of 
strangers, less ferocious but more perfidious, raising up their 
altar on our olive-grounds or tinkling their brass to attract 
the bees from our gardens. 

XENOPHOX. 

Let every man hive his own bees in his own garden; let 
every man worship his own God in his own house. 

ALCIBIADES. 

Be those who assume to themselves the right of controlling 
it, driven out with scourges from the precincts of the city. 

XENOPHON. 

Now, O Alcibiades, come into another room, and, this 
being the supper hour, partake with me, complacently and 
benignly, of our Spartan fare. 



150 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES.* 



EUBULIDES. 

You have always convinced me ; Demosthenes, while you 
were speaking; but I had afterward need to be convinced 
again ; and 1 acknowledge that I do not yet believe in the 
necessity, or indeed in the utility, of a war with Philip. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

He is too powerful. 

EUBULIDES. 

This is my principal reason for recommending that we 
should abstain from hostilities. When you have said that he 
is too powerful, you have admitted that we are too weak : we 
are stil bleeding from the Spartan. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

^Yhatever I could offer in reply, Eubulides, I have 
already spoken in public, and I would rather not enlarge at 
present on it. Come, tell me freely what you think of my 
speech. 

EUBULIDES. 

In your language, Demosthenes, there is, I think, 
a resemblance to the Kephisos, whose waters, as you must 
have observed, are in most seasons pure and limpid and 
equable in their course, yet abounding in depths of which, 
when we discern the bottom, we wonder that we discern it so 
clearly : the same river at every storm swells into a torrent, 
without ford or boundary, and is the stronger and the more 
impetuous from resistance. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Language is part of a man's character. 

EUBULIDES. 

It often is artificial. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Often both are. I speak not of such language as that of 

* A philosopher of Miletus and a dramatic poet : Demosthenes is said to 
have been his scholar. 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 151 

Gorgias and Isocrates and other rhetoricians, but of that which 
belongs to eloquence, of that which enters the heart however 
closed against it, of that which pierces like the sword of 
Perseus, of that which carries us aloft and easily as Medea her 
children, and holds the world below in the same suspense. 

EUBULIDES. 

When I had repeated in the morning to Cynobalanos part 
of a conversation I held with you the evening before, word for 
word, my memory being very exact, as you know, and espe- 
cially in retaining your phrases, he looked at me with a smile 
on his countenance, and said, " Pardon me, Eubulides, but 
this surely is not the language of Demosthenes." In reality, 
you had then, as you often do when we are alone together, 
given way to your genius, and had hazarded an exuberance of 
thought, imagination, and expression, which delighted and 
transported me. Por there was nothing idle, nothing incor- 
rect, but much both solid and ornamental ; as those vases and 
tripods are which the wealthy and powerful offer to the gods. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Cynobalanos is a sensible man, and conversant in style ; but 
Cynobalanos never has remarked that I do not wear among 
my friends at table the same short dress I put on for the 
bema. A more sweeping train would be trodden down, and 
the wearer not listened to, but laughed at. Look into the 
field before you. See those anemones, white, pink, and 
purple, fluttering in the breeze; and those other flowers, 
whatever they are, with close-knotted spiral blossoms, in the 
form of a thyrsus. Some of both species rise above the young 
barley, and are very pretty ; but the farmer will root them out 
as a blemish to his cultivation, and unprofitable in sustaining 
his family. In such a manner must we treat the undergrowth 
of our thoughts, pleasing as they may be at their first appearance 
in the spring of life. One fellow thinks himself like Demos- 
thenes, because he employs the same movement of the arms 
and body : another, for no better reason than because he is 
vituperative, acrid, and insolent, and, before he was hissed 
and hooted from the Agora, had excited the populace by the 
vehemence of his harangues. But you, who know the face 
and features of Demosthenes, his joints and muscles and whole 
conformation, know that nature hath separated this imitative 
animal most widely from him. 



152 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 

EUBULIDES. 

Mischievous as an ape, noisy as a lap-dog, and restless as a 
squirrel, he runs along to the extremity of every twig, leaps 
over from party to party, and, shaken off from all, creeps under 
the throne at Pella. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Philip is the fittest ruler for his own people, but he is better 
for anyone else to dine with than to act or think with. His 
conversation is far above the kingly : it is that of an urbane 
companion, of a scholar, I was going to say of a philosopher, 
I will say more, of a sound unwrangling reasoner, of a plain, 
intelligent, and intelligible man. But those qualities, not 
being glaring, do not attract to him the insects from without. 
Even the wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers 
of Power, whose lamps make every face of the same colour. 
Eoyalty is fed incessantly by the fuel of slavish desires, blown 
by fulsome breath and fanned by cringing follies. It melts 
mankind into one inert mass, carrying off and confounding all 
beneath it, like a torrent of iEtnean lava, bright amid the 
darkness, and dark again amid the light. 

EUBULIDES. 

for Cynobalanos ! how would he stare and lift up his 
shoulders at this torrent. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

He never can have seen me but in the Agora ; and I do not 
carry a full purse into the crowd. Thither I go with a tight 
girdle round my body : in the country I walk and wander 
about discinct. How I became what I am, you know as well 
as I do. I was to form a manner, with great models on one 
side of me, and nature on the other. Had I imitated Plato 
(the writer then most admired) I must have fallen short of his 
amplitude ; and his sentences are seldom such as could be 
admitted into a popular harangue. Xenophon is elegant, but 
unimpassioned, and not entirely free, I think, from affectation. 
Herodotus is exempt from it : what simplicity ! what sweet- 
ness ! what harmony ! not to mention his sagacity of inquiry 
and his accuracy of description. He could not however form 
an orator for the times in which we live ; nor indeed is vigour 
a characteristic or a constituent of his style. I profited 
more from Isaeus, from the study of whose writings, and 
attendance on whose pleadings, I acquired greater strength, 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 153 

compression, and concentration. Aristoteles and Thucydides 
were before me : I trembled lest they should lead me where I 
might raise a recollection of Pericles, whose plainness and 
conciseness and gravity they imitated, not always with success. 
Laying down these qualities as the foundation, I have ventured 
on more solemnity, more passion : I have also been studious 
to bring the powers of action into play, that great instrument 
in exciting the affections which Pericles disdained. He and 
Jupiter could strike any head with their thunderbolts, and 
stand serene and immovable ; I could not. 

EUBULIDES. 

Your opinion of Pericles hath always been the same, but 1 
have formerly heard you mention Plato with much less esteem 
than to-day. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

When we talk diversely of the same person or thing, we do 
not of necessity talk inconsistently. There is much in Plato 
which a wise man will commend; there is more that will 
captivate an unwise one. The irony in his Dialogues has 
amused me frequently and greatly, and the more because in 
others I have rarely found it accompanied with fancy and 
imagination. If I however were to become a writer of 
dialogues, I should be afraid of using it constantly, often as I 
am obliged to do it in my orations. Woe betide those who 
force us into it by injustice and presumption ! Do they dare 
to censure us ? they who are themselves the dust that sullies 
the wing of genius. Had I formed my opinion of Socrates 
from Plato, I should call Socrates a sophist. Who would 
imagine on reading Plato, that his master, instead of question- 
ing and quibbling, had occupied his time in teaching the uses 
and offices of philosophy? There is as wide a difference 
between the imputed and the real character of this man, as 
there is between him who first discovered corn growing, and 
him who first instructed us how to grind and cleanse and 
prepare it for our sustenance. We are ashamed to give a 
false character of a slave, and not at all to give a falser of our 
betters. In this predicament stands Plato, regarding his 
master, his scholars, and his opponents. 

EUBULIDES. 

Before him Pythagoras and Democritus and, earlier stil, 



154 DEMOSTHENES AND EUEULIDES. 

Pherecydes, taught important truths, and, what is rarer, 
separated them from pernicious falsehoods. Pythagoras, who 
preceded Plato in Egypt, and from whom many of his fancies 
are taken, must have been a true lover of wisdom, to have 
travelled so far into countries known hardly by name in 
Greece. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Perhaps he sought some congenial soul; for if two great 
men are existing at the extremities of the earth, they will seek 
each other. 

EUBULIDES. 

Their greatness then must be of a different form and texture 
from what mankind hath usually admired. Greatness, as we 
daily see it, is unsociable. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

The perfect loves what generates it, what proceeds from it, 
what partakes its essence. If you have formed an idea of 
greatness, Eubulides, which corresponds not with this 
description, efface it and cast it out. Pythagoras adapted his 
institutions to the people he would enlighten and direct. 
What portion of the world was ever so happy, so peaceable, 
so well-governed, as the cities of southern Italy. While they 
retained his manners they were free and powerful : some have 
since declined, others are declining, and perhaps at a future 
and not a distant time they may yield themselves up to 
despotism. In a few ages more, those flourishing towns, 
those inexpugnable citadels, those temples which you might 
deem eternal, will be hunted for in their wildernesses like the 
boars and stags. Already there are philosophers who would 
remedy what they call popular commotions by hereditary 
despotism, and who think it as natural and reasonable as that 
children who cry should be compelled to sleep : and there 
likewise are honest citizens who, when they have chewed their 
fig and swallowed it, say, " Yes, 'twere well/' What a 
eulogy on the human understanding ! to assert that it is 
dangerous to choose a succession of administrators from the 
wisest of mankind, and advisable to derive it from the 
weakest ! There have been free Greeks within our memory 
who would have entered into alliance with the most iniquitous 
and most insolent of usurpers, Alexander of Pherai, a territory 
in which Thebe, who murdered her husband, is praised above 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULTDES. 155 

others of both sexes. O Juno ! may such marriages be 
frequent in such countries ! 

Look at history: where do you find in continuation three 
hereditary kings, of whom one at least was not inhuman in 
disposition or weak in intellect? Either of these qualities 
may subvert a state, exposing it first to many sufferings. In 
our Athenian constitution, if we are weakly or indiscreetly 
governed, or capriciously, which hardly can happen, the 
michief is transitory and reparable : one year closes it : and 
the people, both for its satisfaction and its admonition, sees 
that no corruption, no transgression, in its magistrates, is 
unregarded or unchastised. This of all advantages is the 
greatest, the most corroborative of power, the most tutelary of 
morals. I know that there are many in Thrace, and some in 
Sicily, who would recall my wanderings with perfect good- 
humour and complacency. Demosthenes has not lived, has 
not reasoned, has not agitated his soul, for these: he leaves 
them in the quiet possession of all their moulten arguments, 
and in the persuasive hope of all their bright reversions. 
Pythagoras could have had little or no influence on such men : 
he raised up higher, who kept them down. It is easier to 
make an impression upon sand than upon marble : but it is 
easier to make a just one upon marble than upon sand. 
Uncivilised as were the Gauls, he with Ins moderation and 
prudence hath softened the ferocity of their religion, and hath 
made it so contradictory and inconsistent, that the first of 
them who reasons will subvert it. He did not say, " You shall 
no longer sacrifice your fellow-creatures : " he said, " Sacrifice 
the criminal." Other nations do the same : often wantonly, 
always vindictively : the Gauls appease by it, as they imagine, 
both society and the gods. He did not say, " After a certain 
time even this outrage on Nature must cease:" but he said, 
c We have souls which pass into other creatures." A belief 
in the transmigration of souls would abolish by degrees our 
inhumanity. 

EUBULIDES. 

But what absurdity ! 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Religion, when it is intended for the uncivilised, must 
contain things marvellous, things quite absurd to the wiser. 
But I discover no absurdity in making men gentler and 
kinder • and I would rather worship an onion or a crust of 



156 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 

bread, than a god who requires me to immolate an ox or kid 
to appease him. The idea, not of having lost her daughter, 
but of having lost her by a sacrifice, fixed the dagger in the 
grasp of Clytemnestra. Let us observe, Eubulides, the 
religion of our country, be it what it may, unless it command 
us to be cruel or unjust. In religion, if we are right, we do 
not know we are ; if we are wrong, we would not. Above all, 
let us do nothing and say nothing which may abolish or 
diminish in the hearts of the vulgar the sentiments of love 
and awe : on the contrary, let us perpetually give them fresh 
excitement and activity, by baring them to the heavens. On 
the modifications of love it is unnecessary to expatiate ; but I 
am aware that you may demand of me what excitement is 
required to fear. Among its modifications or dependencies 
are veneration and obedience, against the weakening of which 
we ought to provide, particularly in what relates to our 
magisterial and military chiefs. 

EUBULIDES. 

I do not conceive that Pythagoras has left behind him in 
Gaul, unless at Massilia, the remembrance of his doctrines 
or of his name. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

We hear little of the Gauls. It appears however that they 
have not forgotten the wisdom or the services of Pythagoras. 
The man of Samos was to some extent their teacher. It is 
remarkable that they should have preserved the appellation. 
He was too prudent, I suspect, to trust himself many paces 
beyond the newly-built walls of Massilia; for the ignorant 
and barbarous priests would be loth to pardon him the crime 
of withdrawing a dependent in a proselyte. 

EUBULIDES. 

The Druids, the most ferocious and ignorant of all the 
priests our countrymen have anywhere discovered, fell back 
farther into their woods and wilderness at seeing the white 
stones of the citadel rise higher than their altars. Even these 
rude altars were not of their construction, but were the work 
of a much earlier race. The Phocseans and other Ionians 
were sufficiently well versed in policy to leave the natives 
unmolested in their religion. Already does that lively and 
imitative people prefer a worship in which the song and the 
dance and geniality warm the blood, to one which exacts 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 157 

it in the windy downs and gloomy woodlands, and spills it 
on the channeled stone, and catches it dropping from the 
suspended wicker. Young men crowned with flowers are 
likelier to be objects of aversion to the ancient priests than 
to the most timorous and shy of their disciples. The religion 
of blood, like the beasts of prey, will continue to trend 
northward. Worshipers of Apollo, and followers of Bromius 
and the nymphs, would perish in the sunless oak forests ; 
and the Druid has no inheritance in the country of the vine. 
But it becomes the quiet religion and placid wisdom of the 
Greeks, to leave inviolate all the institutions of the circum- * 
jacent people, and especially of those who wish to live among 
them. By degrees they will acknowledge a superiority which 
they could contend against were it asserted. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Pythagoras is said to have been vigorous in enforcing his 
doctrines. 

EUBULIDES. 

In his school; not beyond. They are such indeed as we 
would little wish to see established in a free state, but none 
ever were better adapted to prepare the road for civilisation. 
We find it difficult to believe in the metempsychosis. In fact, 
as other things grow easy, belief is apt to grow difficult. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Where there is mysticism we may pause and listen ; where 
there is argument we may contend and reply. Democritus, 
whom you often mention, certainly no mystic, often contra- 
dicts our senses. He tells us that colours have no colour : 
but his arguments are so strong, his language so clear, his 
pretensions so modest and becoming, I place more confidence 
in him than in .others : future philosophers may demonstrate 
to calmer minds what we have not the patience to investigate.* 

EUBULIDES. 

Plato hath not mentioned him. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

greatness ! what art thou, and where is thy foundation ! 

* Newton has elucidated the theory of colours first proposed by Demo- 
critus, the loss of whose voluminous works is the greatest that philosophy 
has sustained. 



158 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 

I speak not, Eubulides, of that which the vulgar call greatness, 
a phantom stalking forward from a salt-marsh in Boeotia, or 
from a crevice in some rock of Sunion or of Taxos ;* but 
the highest, the most illustrious, the most solid among men, 
what is it ! Philosophy gives us arms against others, not 
against ourselves, not against those domestic traitors, those 
homestead incendiaries, the malignant passions ; arms that are 
brilliant on the exercise-ground, but brittle in the fight, when 
the most dangerous of enemies is pressing us. Early love 
was never so jealous in anyone as philosophy in Plato. He 
resembles his own idea of God, whose pleasure in the soli- 
tudes of eternity is the contemplation of himself. 

EUBULIDES. 

Jealousy is not quite excluded from the school opposite. 
Aristoteles, it has been suggested to me, when he remarks 
that by the elongation of the last member in a sentence a 
dignity is added to composition, looked toward you, who, as 
you have heard the rhetoricians say, are sometimes inattentive 
or indifferent to nobility of expression. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

When Aristoteles gives an opinion upon eloquence I listen 
with earnestness and respect : so wise a man can say nothing 
inconsiderately. His own style on every occasion is exactly 
what it should be : his sentences, in which there are no cracks 
or inequalities, have always their proper tone : for whatever is 
rightly said, sounds rightly. 

Ought I to speak nobly, as you call it, of base matters and 
base men ? ought my pauses to be invariably the same ? would 
Aristoteles wish that a coat of mail should be as flowing as his 
gown ? Let peace be perfect peace, war decisive war • but 
let Eloquence move upon earth with all the facilities of change 
that belong to the gods themselves ; only let her never be 
idle, never be vain, never be ostentatious; for these are indi- 
cations of debility. We, who have habituated ourselves from 
early youth to the composition of sonorous periods, know 
that it requires more skill to finger and stop our instrument 
than to blow it. When we have gained over the ear to our 
party, we have other work to do, and sterner and rougher. 
Then comes forward action, not unaccompanied by vehemence.. 

* Taxos was rich in silver-mines. 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 159 

Pericles, you have heard, used none, but kept his arm wrapped 
up within his vest. Pericles was in the enjoyment of that 
power which his virtues and his abilities well deserved. If he 
had carried in his bosom the fire that burns in mine, he wonld 
have kept his hand outside. By the contemplation of men 
like me, Aristoteles is what he is; and, instead of under- 
valuing, I love him the better for it. Do we not see with 
greater partiality and fondness those who have been educated 
and fed upon our farms, than those who come from Orcho- 
menos or Mantinea ? If he were now among us in Athens, 
what would he think of two or three haranguers, who deal 
forth metaphysics by the pailful in their addresses to the 
people ? 

EUBULIDES. 

I heard one, a little time since, who believed he was doing 
it, ignorant that the business of metaphysics is rather to 
analyse than to involve. He avoided plain matter, he rejected 
idiom ; he filtered the language of the people and made them 
drink through a sieve. 

DEilOSTHEXES. 

What an admirable definition have you given, unintentionally, 
of the worst public speaker possible, and, I will add with 
equal confidence, of the worst writer. If I send to Hymettos 
for a hare, I expect to distinguish it at dinner by its flavour 
as readily as before dinner by its ears and feet. The people 
you describe to me soak out all the juices of our dialect. 
Nothing is so amusing to me as to hear them talk on elo- 
quence. No' disciple at the footstool is so silent and ductile 
as I am at the lessons I receive ; none attends with such 
composure, none departs with such hilarity. 

I have been careful to retain as much idiom as I could, 
often at the peril of being called ordinary and vulgar. Nations 
in a state of decay lose their idiom, which loss is always 
precursory to that of freedom. What your father and your 
grandfather used as an elegance in conversation, is now 
abandoned to the populace, and every day we miss a little of 
our own, and collect a little from strangers : this prepares us 
for a more intimate union with them, in which we merge at 
last altogether. Every good writer has much idiom ; it is 
the life and spirit of language; and none such ever enter- 
tained a fear or apprehension that strength and sublimity 
were to be lowered and weakened by it. Speaking to the 



160 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 

people, I use the people's phraseology : I temper my metal 
according to the uses I intend it for. In fact no language 
is very weak in its natural course, until it runs too far ; and 
then the poorest and the richest are ineffectual equally. The 
habitude of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the 
fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional. 
Free governments, where such necessity can not exist, will 
always produce true eloquence. 

EUBULIDES. 

We have in Athens young orators from the schools, who 
inform us that no determinate and masculine peculiarities of 
manner should appear in public : they would dance without 
displaying their muscles, they would sing without discomposing 
their lips. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

I will drag them, so help me Jupiter ! back again to their 
fathers and mothers : I will grasp their wrists so tightly, the 
most perverse of them shall not break away from me. Tem- 
pestuous times are coming. Another month, or two at farthest 
and I will throw such animation into their features and their 
gestures, you shall imagine they have been singing to the 
drum and horn, and dancing to dithyrambics. The dustbox 
of metaphysics shall be emptied no more from the schoolroom 
into the council. 

I suspect I have heard the chatterer you mentioned. The 
other day in the market-place, I saw a vulgar and shuffling 
man lifted on a honey-barrel by some grocers and slave- 
merchants, and the crowd was so dense around me I could 
not walk away. A fresh-looking citizen, next me, nodded 
and winked in my face at the close of every sentence. Dis- 
sembling as well as I could my impatience at his importunity, 
" Friend/' said T, " do believe me, I understand not a 
syllable of the discourse." 

" Ah Demosthenes \" whispered he, "your time is fairly 
gone by : we have orators now whom even you, with all your 
acuteness and capacity, can not comprehend." 

" "Whom will they convince ?" said I. 

" Convince \" cried my narrator ; " who has ever wisht 
to be persuaded against the grain in any matter of importance 
or utility ? A child, if you tell him a horrible or a pathetic 
story, is anxious to be persuaded it is true ; men and women, 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 161 

if you tell them one injurious to the respectability of a 
neighbour. Desire of persuasion rests and dies here. "We 
listen to those whom we know to be of the same opinion as 
ourselves, and we call them wise for being of it; but we 
avoid such as differ from us ; we pronounce them rash before 
we have heard them, and stil more afterward, lest we should 
be thought at any time to have erred. We come already 
convinced : we want surprise, as at our theaters ; astonish- 
ment, as at the mysteries of Eleusis." 

" But what astonishes, what surprises you ?" 

" To hear an Athenian talk two hours together, hold us 
silent and immovable as the figures of Hermes before our 
doors, and find not a single one among us that can carry home 
with him a thought or an expression/'' 

"Thou art right/' I exclaimed; "he is greater than 
Triptolemos ; he not only gives you a plentiful meal out of chaff 
and husks, but he persuades yon that it is a savoury repast/' 

" By Jupiter !" swore aloud my friend, " he persuades us 
no such thing : but everyone is ashamed of being the first to 
acknowledge that he never was master of a particle out of 
what he had listened to and applauded/' 

I had the curiosity to inquire who the speaker was. 

" What ! do you not know Ansedestatos ?" said he, making 
a mark of interrogation upon my ribs, with a sharper 
elbow than from his countenance I could have imagined had 
belonged to him ; " the clever Ansedestatos, who came into 
notice as a youth by the celebration in verse of a pebble at 
the bottom of the Ilyssos. He forthwith was presented to 
Anytos, who experienced a hearty pleasure in seducing him 
away from his guardians. Anytos on his deathbed (for the 
gods allowed liim one) recommended the young Ansedestatos 
warmly to his friends : such men have always many, and those 
the powerful. Fortunate had it been for our country if he 
had pilfered only the verses he pronounced. His new patrons 
connived at his withdrawing from the treasury no less than 
six hundred talents." 

"Impossible! six hundred talents are sufficient for the 
annual stipend of all our civil magistrates, from the highest 
to the lowest, and of all the generals in our republic and its 
dependencies." 

"It was before you came forward into public life, O 
Demosthenes ! but my father can prove the exactness of my 



162 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBTJLIDES. 

statement. The last little sip from the reservoir was seventy 
talents* for a voyage to Lesbos, and a residence there of 
about three months, to settle the value of forty skins of wine, 
owing to the Lesbians in the time of Thrasybulos. This, I 
know not by what oversight, is legible among the accounts." 

Indignant at what I heard, I threatened to call him before 
the people. 

" Let him alone," said slowly in an undervoice my prudent 
friend : " he has those about him who will swear, and adduce 
the proofs, that you are holding a traitorous correspondence 
with Philip or Artaxerxes." 

I began to gaze in indignation on his florid and calm 
countenance ; he winked again, again accosted me with his 
elbow, and withdrew. 

EUBTJLIDES. 

Happy Athenians ! who have so many great men of so 
many kinds, peculiar to yourselves, and can make one even 
out of Anaedestatos. 



SECOND CONVERSATION". 



EUBTJLIDES. 

It was nearly in this place that we met once before ; but not 
so early in the day ; for then the western sun had withdrawn 
from the plain, and was throwing its last rays among the 
columns of the Parthenon. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

I think it was about the time when the question was agitated 
of war or peace with the king of Macedon. 

EUBULIDES. 

It was. Why do you look so cheerful on a sudden ? Soon 
afterward followed the disastrous battle at Cheronsea. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Certainly, I derive no cheerfulness out of that. 

EUBULIDES. 

"Well, I believe there is little reason at the present hour why 
we should be melancholy. 

* 14,000 pounds. 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULTDES. 163 

DEMOSTHENES. 

If there is, I hope it lies not on the side of the Agora. 

EUBULIDE3. 

You have composed your features again, and seem to be 
listening : but rather (I suspect) at your own internal thoughts 
than in the expectation of mine. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Let us avoid, I entreat you, my dear Eubulides, those 
thorny questions which we can not so well avoid within the 
walls. Our opinions in matters of state are different : let 
us walk together where our pursuits are similar or the same. 

EUBULIDES. 

Demosthenes ! it is seldom that we have conversed on 
politics, sad refuge of restless minds, averse from business and 
from study. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Say worse against them, Eubulides ! and I, who am tossed 
on the summit of the wave, will cry out to you to curse them 
deeplier. There are few men who have not been witnesses 
that, on some slight divergence of incondite and unsound 
opinions, they have rolled away the stone from the cavern- 
mouth of the worst passions, and have evoked them up between 
two friends. I, of all men, am the least inclined to make 
them' the subject of conversation; and particularly when I 
meet a literary man as you are, from whom I can receive, and 
often have received, some useful information, some philoso- 
phical thought, some generous sentiment, or some pleasant 
image. Beside, wishing to make an impression on the public 
mind, I must not let my ideas run off in every channel that 
lies before me : I must not hear the words, " Demosthenes 
will say this or this to-day." People ought to come toward 
me in expectation, and not carrying my sentiments, crude and 
broken, walleted before them. 

EUBULIDES. 

There however are occasions when even politics are delightful; 
when they rejoice and exult as a stripling, or breathe softly as 
an infant. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Then we can not do better than sit quiet and regard them in 
silence : for it is such a silence as the good citizen and good 

m 2 



164 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 

father of a family would be unwilling to disturb. Why do 
you smile and shake your head, Eubulides ? 

EUBULIDES. 

Answer me first • had you no morning dream, Demosthenes, 
a few hours ago ; which dreams (they tell us) are sure to be 
accomplished, or show us tilings that are already so ? 

DEMOSTHENES. 

I dream seldom. 

EUBULIDES. 

Were you awakened by no voices ? 

DEMOSTHENES. 

I sleep soundly. Come, do not fall from philosophy to 
divination. We usually have conversed on eloquence. I am 
not reminding you of this, from the recollection that you once, 
and indeed more than once, have commended me. I took 
many lessons in the art from you ; and will take more, if you 
please, as we walk along. 

EUBULIDES. 

Be contented : none surpasses you. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Many speak differently upon that subject, lying to the 
public, and to their own hearts, which I agitate as violently 
as those incited by me to bleed in the service of our country. 
If among our literary men I have an enemy so rash and impu- 
dent as to decry my writings, or to compare them with the 
evanescences of the day, I desire for him no severer punish- 
ment than the record of his sentence. The cross will be more 
durable than the malefactor. 

EUBULIDES. 

In proportion as men approach you, they applaud you. To 
those far distant and far below, you seem as little as they seem 
to you. Fellows who can not come near enough to reverence 
you, think they are only a stone's throw distant; and they 
throw it. Unfortunate men ! Choked by their criticisms ! 
which others expectorate so easily ! 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Commiserate them more stil : ignorant or regardless, as 
they are, that they have indented and incorporated a mark of 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 165 

ignominy in their names. Ay, by the dog ! (as Socrates used 
to swear) and such too as no anger of mine could have heated 
for them, no ability of mine impressed. 

EUBULIDES. 

There are few among the ignorant, and especially if they 
are pompous and inflated, who, if we attend to them patiently, 
may not amuse us by the clumsy display of some rash opinion. 
I was present a few nights ago at a company where you were 
mentioned . . . 

DEMOSTHENES. 

My master in rhetoric ! dear Eubulides ! do we correctly 
say " present at a company ? " 

EUBULIDES. 

You and I do. We are present at many companies ; we 
form a part of few. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Continue the narrative : the objection is overcome. 

EUBULIDES. 

TTillingly do I continue it, for it reminds me of an evening 
in which your spirits had all their play, and soared above the 
city-walls, and beyond the confines of Attica. Men whose 
brains are like eggs boiled hard, thought your ideas or your 
speech exuberant ; and very different was indeed your diction 
from its usual economy and frugality. This conversation of 
yours was repeated, the reciter employing the many metaphors 
you had used. Halmurus sat next me, kicking my legs now 
and then, in his impatience to express that ill-humour which 
urges him on all occasions to querulousness and contradiction. 
At last lie sprang up, and wiping the corners of his mouth, 
declared that your mind was not rich enough for all those 
metaphors which . an injudicious friend had quoted as yours. 
I replied to him calmly, that it was natural he should be 
ignorant of the fact, and certain that he must remain so, 
since Demosthenes only used such language when it was 
excited by the wit or the wisdom or the geniality of his friends; 
and I consoled him with the assurance that a warier man 
might have fallen into the same pit, without the same help of 
extrication. Although he saw how friendly I had been to 
him, he was not pacified, but protested that many doubts 
remained upon his mind. He appealed to Cliniades who sate 
opposite. " I have been present/' said Cliniades, " at my 



166 DEMOSTHENES AND ETJBULIDES. 

father's and in other places, when Demosthenes hath scattered 
among us all the ornaments of diction ; it would puzzle me to 
recount, and you to remember, the names of them/' " That 
is a modest youth/' said Halmuros in my ear, " but rather too 
zealous in partisanship." 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Inconsiderate and silly is the criticism of Halmuros. Must 
a pugilist, because he is a pugilist, always clench his fist ? may 
he not relax it at dinner, at wine, at the reception of a friend ? 
Is it necessary to display the strength of my muscles when 
I have no assailant to vanquish or intimidate ? When we are 
wrestling we do not display the same attitudes as when we are 
dancing. On the sand and in the circle we contend for the 
crown ; amid the modulations of flute and lyre, of tabor and 
symbal, we wear it. And it is there, among our friends and 
favorites, among the elegant and refined, we draw attention 
to the brightness and the copiousness and the pliancy of its 
constituent parts. It is permitted me, I trust, O Eubulides, 
to indulge in a flowery and flowing robe when I descend from 
the bema, and relax my limbs in the cool retirement at home. 
If I did it in public I should be powerless; for there is 
paralysis in derision. Plainness and somewhat of austerity 
ought to be habitual with the orator. If he relinquishes 
them rarely, when he does relinquish them he gains the affec- 
tions of his audience by his heartiness, warmth, and condescen- 
sion. But sentences well measured and well moulded are 
never thrown away on the meanest of the Athenians : and 
many of them perhaps are as sensible of the variety I give to 
mine as the most delicate of the critics, and are readier to do 
me justice. 

EUBULIDES. 

It appears to be among the laws of Nature that the mighty 
of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the 
solitary flight one of great bird is followed by the twittering 
petulance of many smaller. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

The higher and richer bank is corroded by the stream, 
which is gentle to the flat and barren sand : and philosophers 
tell us that mountains are shaken by the vilest of the minerals 
below them. 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 167 



EUBULIDES. 



Here, Demosthenes, let the parallel be broken. And now, 
can not I draw from you the avowal, that you have heard the 
news from Pella, brought by the messager at sun-rise ? Your 
derision has not deterred the people from asking " Is Philip 
dead?" 

DEMOSTHENES. 

The messager came first to my house, knowing my habitude 
of early rising. My order as magistrate was, that he keep 
secret tins visit of his to me, threatening him with the displea- 
sure and censure of the more ancient, if ever they should 
discover that the intelligence reached them after. My thoughts 
crowded upon me so fast and turbulently, that, no sooner had 
I reached the monument of Antiope, than I stopped from 
exhaustion, and sate down beneath it. Happy as I always am 
to meet you, my good Eubulides, I acknowledge I never was 
less so than on this occasion. Tor it is my practice, and ever 
has been, to walk quite alone. In my walks I collect my 
arguments, arrange my sentences, and utter them aloud. 
Eloquence with me can do little else in the city, than put on 
her bracelets, tighten her sandals, and show herself to the 
people. Her health, and vigour, and beauty, if she has any, 
are the fruits of the open fields. The slowness or celerity of 
my steps is now regulated and impelled by the gravity and 
precision, now by the enthusiasm and agitation of my mind : 
and the presence of anyone, however dear and intimate, is a 
check and impediment to the free agency of these emotions. 
Thousands, I know, had I remained in the city, would have 
come running up to me with congratulations and embraces ; 
as if danger could befall us only from the hand of Philip ! 
another Jove, who alone upon earth can vibrate the thunder. 

EUBULIDES. 

One hour afterward I passed through them hastily, and saw 
and heard them wandering and buzzing along the streets in 
every direction. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Leaving to us the country and fresh air, and, what itself is 
the least tranquil thing in nature, but is the most potent 
tranquillizer of an excited soul, the sea. To-day I avoid the 
swarm : to-morrow I strike my brass and collect it. 



168 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 

How soon, Eubulides, may this ancient hive be subverted, 
and these busy creatures lie under it extinct ! 

EUBULIDES. 

That greatest and most fortunate event, the death of Philip, 
seems at one moment in the course of our conversation to have 
given you more than your ordinary vigour, and at another (as 
now again) to have almost torpefied you. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Inattention and taciturnity are not always proofs of incivility 
and disrespect. I was revolving in my mind what I might 
utter as we went along, less unworthy of your approbation 
than many things I have spoken in public, and with great 
anxiety that they should be well received. 

There is then one truth, Eubulides, far more important 
than every other ; far more conducive to the duration of states, 
to the glory of citizens, to the adornment of social life, to the 
encouragement of arts and sciences, to the extension of the 
commerce and intercourse of nations, to the foundation and 
growth of colonies, to the exaltation and dominion of genius, 
and indeed to whatever is desirable to the well-educated and 
the free. 

EUBULIDES. 

Enounce it. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

There is, I repeat it, one truth above all the rest ; above all 
promulgated by the wisdom of legislators, the zeal of orators, 
the enthusiasm of poets, or the revelation of gods : a truth 
whose brightness and magnitude are almost lost to view by its 
stupendous heighth. If I never have pointed it out, knowing 
it as I do, let the forbearance be assigned not to timidity but 
to prudence. 

EUBULIDES. 

May I hope at last to hear it ? 

DEMOSTHENES. 

I must conduct you circuitously, and interrogate you before- 
hand, as those do who lead us to the mysteries. 

You have many sheep and goats upon the mountain, which 
were lately bequeathed to you by your nephew Timocles. Do 
you think it the most advantageous to let some mastiff, with 
nobody's chain or collar about his neck, run among them and 



DEMOSTHENES AND EUBULIDES. 169 

devour them one after another, or to prepare a halter and lay 
poison and a trap for him ? 

EUBULIDES. 

Certainly here, Demosthenes, you are not leading me into 
any mysteries. The answer is plain : the poison, trap, and 
halter, are ready. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

TVell spoken. You have several children and grandchildren : 
you study economy in their behalf : would you rather spend 
twenty drachmas for fuel, than three for the same quantity of 
the same material ? 

EUBULIDES. 

Nay, nay, Demosthenes, if this is not mystery, it is worse. 
You are like a teacher to whom a studious man goes to learn 
the meaning of a sentence, and who, instead of opening the 
volume that contains it, asks him gravely whether he has 
learnt his alphabet. Prythee do not banter me. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Tell me, then, which you would rather ; make one drunken 
man sober for ever, or ten thousand men drunk for many 
years ? 

EUBULIDES. 

By all the gods ! abstain from such idle questions. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

The solution of this, idle as you call it, may save you much 
more than the twenty drachmas. Eubulides ! we have seen, 
to our sorrow and ignominy, the plain of Cheronsea bestrewn 
with the bodies of our bravest citizens ; had one barbarian fallen, 
they had not. Rapine and licentiousness are the precursors and 
the followers of even the most righteous war. A single blow 
against the worst of mortals may prevent them. Many years 
and much treasure are usually required for an uncertain issue, 
beside the stagnation of traffic, the prostration of industry, and 
innumerable maladies arising from towns besieged and regions 
depopulated. A moment is sufficient to avert all these 
calamities. No usurper, no invader, should be permitted to 
exist on earth. And on whom can the vengeance of the gods 
be expected to descend, if it descend not on that guilty 
wretch, who would rather that ten thousand " innocent, ten 
thousand virtuous citizens should perish, than that one 
iniquitous and atrocious despot should be without his daily 



170 DEMOSTHENES AND EUBTJLLDES. 

batli of blood. A single brave man might have followed the 
late tyrant into Scythia and have given his carcass to the 
vulture ; by which heroic deed we should have been spared the 
spectacle of Greece in mourning. What columns, what pro- 
cessions, would have been decreed to this deliverer, out of the 
treasure we may soon be condemned to pay, whether as tribute 
or subsidy, to our enslaver. 

EUBULIDES. 

No, no. Praises to the Immortals ! he is dead. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Philip has left the world. But regard not, my friend, 
the mutual congratulations, the intemperate and intempestive 
joy of the Athenians, with any other sentiment than pity ; for 
while Alexander lives, or Alexander's successor, while any 
king whatever breathes on any of our confines, Philip is not 
dead. 

EUBULIDES. 

Eaise up thy brow, Demosthenes ! raise up again that 
arm, hanging down before thee as if a flame from heaven had 
blasted it. Have we not seen it in its godlike strength, terrible 
even in beneficence, like Neptune's, when the horse sprang 
from under his trident ? Take courage ! give it ! Inspire it 
in a breath from the inner and outer Keramicus to the 
Parthenon, from the temple of the Eumenides to the gates of 
the Piraeus. What is the successor of Philip ? a mad youth. 

DEMOSTHENES. 

Does much mischief require much wisdom ? Is a firebrand 
sensible ; is a tempest prudent ? It is a very indifferent rat 
or weasel that hath not as much courage as Alexander, and 
more prudence : I say nothing of temperance, in which even 
inferior beasts, if there be any such, are his betters. We 
know this : the knowledge of it does not ensure our quiet, but 
rather is a reason, at least the latter part of it, why we can 
trust in him for none. 

If men considered the happiness of others, or their own ; in 
fewer words, if they were rational or provident, no state would 
be depopulated, no city pillaged, not a village would be laid in 
ashes, not a farm deserted. But there always have been, and 
always will be, men about the despot, who persuade him that 
terror is better than esteem ; that no one knows whether he is 
reverenced or not, but that he who is dreaded has indubitable 



DEMOSTHENES AND EtFBULIDES. 171 

proofs of it, and is regarded by mortals as a God. By pam- 
pering this foible in the prince, they are admitted to come 
closer and closer to him ; and from the indulgence of his 
corrupted humours they derive their wealth and influence. 
Every man in the world would be a republican, if he did not 
hope from fortune and favour more than from industry and 
desert ; in short, if he did not expect to carry off sooner or 
later, from under another system, what never could belong to 
him rightfully, and what can not (he thinks) accrue to him 
from this. To suppose the contrary, would be the same as to 
suppose that he would rather have a master in his house, than 
friend, brother, or son ; and that he has both more confidence 
and more pleasure in an alien's management of it, than in his 
own, or in any person's selected by his experience and deputed 
by his choice. 

EUBULIDES. 

Insanity to imagine it ! 

DEMOSTHEXES. 

In religions and governments, Eubulides, there are things 
on which few men reason, and at which those who do reason, 
shrink and shudder. The worthless cling upon these lofty 
follies, and use them as the watchtowers of Ambition. We 
too are reproved by them in turn for like propensities : and 
truly I wish it could be said that every human motive were 
ingenuous and pure. We can. not say anything similar. Come, 
let us own the worst ; we are ambitious. But is it not evident 
of us orators in a republic, that our ambition and the scope of 
it must drop together when we no longer can benefit or fore- 
warn our citizens ? In kingdoms the men are most commended 
and most elevated who serve the fewest, and who, serving the 
fewest, injure the most ; in republics, those who serve the 
many, and injure none. The loss of this privilege is the 
greatest loss humanity can sustain. To you, because I ponder 
and meditate, I appear dejected. Clearly do I see indeed how 
much may soon cease to be within my power ; but I possess 
the confidence of strength within me, and the consciousness of 
having exerted it for the glory of my country and the utility 
of mankind. Look at that olive before us. Seasons and 
iron have searched deeply into its heart ; yet it shakes its 
berries in the air, promising you sustenance and light. In 
olives it is common to see remaining just enough of the body 
to support the bark ; and this is often so perforated, that, rf 



172 yESCHINES AND FHOCION. 

near the ground, a dog or sheep may pass through. Neither 
the vitality nor the fecundity of the tree appears in the least 
to suffer by it. While I remember what I have been, I never 
can be less. External power affects those only who have none 
intrinsically. I have seen the day, Eubulides, when the most 
august of cities had but one voice within her walls ; and when 
the stranger on entering them stopped at the silence of the 
gateway, and said, " Demosthenes is speaking in the assembly 
of the people." 

This is an ambition which no other can supplant or reach. 
The image of it stands eternally between me and kings, and 
separates me by an immeasurable interval from their courts 
and satraps. I swear against them, in the name of our 
country, in the name of Pallas Athene and of all the gods, 
amid the victims that have fallen by them and are about to 
fall, everlasting hatred. 

Go now to the city, Eubulides, and report my oath. Add, 
that you left me contemplating in solitude the posture of our 
affairs, reluctant to lay before the Athenians any plan or 
project until I have viewed it long and measured it correctly; 
and to deliver any words to them, whether of counsel or 
comfort or congratulation, unworthy of so sedate and circum- 
spect a people. 

EUBULIDES. 

How gravely and seriously you speak ! do you think of them 
so highly ? 

DEMOSTHENES. 

I have said it ; go ; repeat it. 



^SCHINES AND PHOCION. 



^SCHINES. 

Phocion, again I kiss the hand that hath ever raised up 
the unfortunate. 

PHOCION. 

1 know not, ^Eschines, to what your discourse would tend. 

^SCHINES. 

Yesterday, when the malice of Demosthenes would have 



.ESCHINES AND PHOCION. 173 

turned against me the vengeance of the people ; by pointing 
me out as him whom the priestess of Apollo had designated, 
in declaring the Athenians were unanimous, one excepted; 
did you not cry aloud, / am the man ; I approve of nothing 
yon do ? That I see you again, that I can express to you my 
gratitude, these are your gifts. 

PHOCION. 

And does iEschines then suppose that I should not have 
performed my duty, whether he were alive or dead ? To have 
removed from the envy of an ungenerous rival, and from the 
resentment of an inconsiderate populace, the citizen who pos- 
sesses my confidence, the orator who defends my country, and 
the soldier who has fought by my side, was among those 
actions which are always well repaid. The line is drawn 
across the account : let us close it. 

^SCHINES. 

I am not insensible, nor have ever been, to the afflicted ; 
my compassion hath been excited in the city and in the field ; 
but when have I been moved, as I am now, to weeping ? Your 
generosity is more pathetic than pity ; and at your eloquence, 
stern as it is, Phocion, my tears gush like those warm 
fountains which burst forth suddenly from some convulsion of 
the earth. 

Immortal Gods ! that Demades and Polyeuctus and Demos- 
thenes should prevail in the council over Phocion! that even 
their projects for a campaign should be adopted, in preference 
to that general's who hath defeated Philip in every encounter, 
and should precipitate the war against the advice of a politi- 
cian, by whose presages, and his only, the Athenians have 
never been deceived. 

PHOCION. 

It is true, I -am not popular. 

^ESCHINES. 

Become so. 

PHOCION. 

It has been frequently and with impunity in my power to 
commit base actions; and I abstained: would my friend advise 
me at last to commit the basest of all ? to court the suffrages 
of people I despise ! 

^ISCHINES. 

You court not even those who love and honor you. 



174 ^ESCHINES AND PHOCIOX. 

Thirty times and oftener have you been chosen to lead 
our armies, and never once were present at the election. 
Unparalleled glory ! when have the Gods shown anything 
similar among men ! Not Aristides nor Epaminondas, the 
most virtuous of mortals, not Miltiades nor Cimon, the most 
glorious in their exploits, enjoyed the favour of Heaven so 
uninterruptedly. No presents, no solicitations, no flatteries, 
no concessions : you never even asked a vote, however duly, 
customarily, and gravely. 

PHOCTON. 

The highest price we can pay for anything is, to ask it : 
and to solicit a vote appears to me as unworthy an action as 
to solicit a place in a will : it is not ours, and might have 
been another's. 

JBSCHINES. 

A question unconnected with my visit now obtrudes itself; 
and indeed, Phocion, I have remarked heretofore that an 
observation from you hath made Athenians, on several occasions, 
forget their own business and debates, and fix themselves 
upon it. What is your opinion on the right and expediency 
of making wills ? 

phocion-. 

That it is neither expedient nor just to make them ; and 
that the prohibition would obviate and remove (to say nothing 
of duplicity and servility) much injustice and discontent; the 
two things against which every legislator should provide the 
most cautiously. General and positive laws should secure the 
order of succession, as far as unto the grandchildren of brother 
and sister : beyond and out of these, property of every kind 
should devolve to the commonwealth. Thousands have 
remained unmarried, that, by giving hopes of legacies, they 
may obtain votes for public offices ; thus being dishonest, and 
making others so, defrauding the community of many citizens 
by their celibacy, and deteriorating many by their ambition. 
Luxury and irregular love have produced in thousands the 
same effect. They care neither about offspring nor about 
offices, but gratify the most sordid passions at their country's 
most ruinous expense. If these two descriptions of citizens 
were prohibited from appointing heirs at their option, and 
obliged to indemnify the republic for their inutility and nullity, 
at least by so insensible a fine as that which is levied on them 



jEschines and phocion. 175 

after death, the members would shortly be reduced to few, 
and much of distress and indigence, much of dishonour and 
iniquity, would be averted from the people of Athens. 

But services and friendships . . . 

PHOCION. 

... are rewarded by friendships and services. 

2SSCHINES. 

You have never delivered your opinion upon this subject 
before the people. 

PHOCION. 

While passions and minds are agitated, the fewer opinions 
we deliver before them the better. We have laws enough ; 
and we should not accustom men to changes. Though many 
things might be altered and improved, yet alteration in state- 
matters, important or unimportant in themselves, is weighty 
in their complex and their consequences. A little car in 
motion shakes all the houses of a street : let it stand quiet, 
and you or I could almost bear it on our foot : it is thus with 
institutions. 

ksCHINES. 

On wills you have excited my inquiry rather than satisfied 
it : you have given me new thoughts, but you have also made 
room for more. 

PHOCION. 

iEschines, would you take possession of a vineyard or olive- 
ground winch nobody had given to you ? 

iESCHINES. 

Certainly not. 

PHOCION. 

Yet if it were bequeathed by will, you would ? 

IESCHINES. 

Who would hesitate ? 

PHOCION. 

In many cases the just man. 

-ESCHINES. 

In some indeed. 

PHOCION. 

There is a parity in all between a will and my hypothesis of 



176 iESCHINES AND PHOCION. 

vineyard or olive-ground. Inheriting by means of a will, we 
take to ourselves what nobody has given. 

^SCHINES. 

Quite the contrary : we take what he has given who does 
not deprive himself of any enjoyment or advantage by his 

gift. 

PHOCION. 

Again I say, we take it, JEschines, from no giver at all; 
for he whom you denominate the giver does not exist : he 
who does not exist can do nothing, can accept nothing, can 
exchange nothing, can give nothing. 



He gave it while he was living, and while he had these 
powers and faculties. 

PHOCION. 

If he gave it while he was living, then it was not what 
lawyers and jurists and legislators call a will or testament, on 
which alone we spoke. 

^SCHINES. 

True ; I yield. 

PHOCION. 

The absurdities we do not see are more numerous and 
greater than those we discover; for truly there are few 
imaginable that have not crept from some corner or other into 
common use, and these escape our notice by familiarity. 

.3ESCHINES. 

We pass easily over great inequalities, and smaller shock 
us. He who leaps down resolutely and with impunity from a 
crag of Lycabettos,* may be lamed perhaps for life by missing 
a step in the descent from a temple. 

Again, if you please, to our first question. 

PHOCION. 

I would change it willingly for another, if you had not 
dropt something out of which I collect that you think me 
too indifferent to the administration of public affairs. In- 
difference to the welfare of our country is a crime ; but when 
our country is reduced to a condition in which the bad are 
preferred to the good, the foolish to the wise, hardly any 

* Called afterwards Anlcesmos. 



jESChines and phocion. 177 

catastrophe is to be deprecated or opposed that may shake 
them from their places. 

^SCHINES. 

In dangerous and trying times they fall naturally and 
necessarily, as flies drop out of a curtain let down in winter. 
Should the people demand of me what better I would propose 
than my adversaries, such are the extremities to which their 
boisterousness and levity have reduced us, I can return no 
answer. We are in the condition of a wolf biting off his leg 
to escape from the trap that has caught it. 

PHOCION. 

Calamities have assaulted mankind in so great a variety of 
attacks, that nothing new can be devised against them. He 
who would strike out a novelty in architecture, commits a 
folly in safety ; his house and he may stand : he who attempts 
it in politics, carries a torch, from which at the first narrow 
passage we may expect a conflagration. Experience is our 
only teacher both in war and peace. As we formerly did 
against the Lacedemonians and their allies, we might by our 
naval superiority seize or blockade the maritime towns of 
Philip • we might conciliate Sparta, who has outraged and 
defied him; we might wait even for his death, impending 
from drunkenness, lust, ferocity, and inevitable in a short 
space of time from the vengeance to which they expose him 
at home. It is a dangerous thing for a monarch to corrupt a 
nation yet uncivilised \ to corrupt a civilised one is the wisest 
thins: he can do. 



.ESCHINES. 



I see no reason why we should not send an executioner to 
release him from the prison-house of his crimes, with his 
family to attend him. Kings play at war unfairly with 
republics : they c&n only lose some earth and some creatures 
they value as little, while republics lose in every soldier a part 
of themselves. Therefor no wise republic ought to be 
satisfied, unless she bring to punishment the criminal most 
obnoxious, and those about him who may be supposed to have 
made him so, his counsellors and his courtiers. Retaliation 
is not a thing to be feared. You might as reasonably be 
contented with breaking the tables and chairs of "a wretch who 
hath murdered your children, as with slaying the soldiers of a 
despot who wages war against you. The least you can do in 



178 jEschines and phocion. 

justice or in safety, is, to demand his blood of the people who 
are under him, tearing in pieces the nest of his brood. The 
Locrians have admitted only two new laws in two hundred 
years ; because he who proposes to establish or to change one, 
comes with a halter round his throat, and is strangled if his 
proposition is rejected. Let wars, which ought to be more 
perilous to the adviser, be but equally so : let those who 
engage in them perish if they lose, I mean the principals, and 
new wars will be as rare among others as new laws among the 
Locrians. 

PHOCION. 

Both laws and wars are much addicted to the process of 
generation. Philip, I am afraid, has prepared the Athenians 
for. his government ; and yet I wonder how, in a free state, 
any man of common sense can be bribed. The corrupter 
would only spend his money on persons of some calculation 
and reflection : with how little of either must those be 
endowed, who do not see that they are paying a perpetuity for 
an annuity ! Suppose that they, amid suspicions, both from 
him in whose favour, and from those to whose detriment, they 
betray, can enjoy everything they receive, yet what security 
have their children and dependents? Property is usually 
gained in hope no less of bequeathing than of enjoying it ; 
how certain is it that these will lose more than was acquired 
for them ! If they lose their country and their laws, what 
have they ? The bribes of monarchs will be discovered, by 
the receiver, to be like pieces of furniture given to a man 
who, on returning home, finds that his house, in which he 
intended to place them, has another master. I can conceive 
no bribery at all seductive to the most profligate, short of 
that which establishes the citizen bribed among the members 
of a hereditary aristocracy, which in the midst of a people is 
a kind of foren state, where the spoiler and traitor may 
take refuge. Now Philip is not so inhuman, as, in case he 
should be the conqueror, to inflict on us so humiliating a 
punishment. Our differences with him are recent, and he 
marches from policy, not from enmity. The Lacedemonians 
did indeed attempt it, in the imposition of the thirty tyrants ; 
but such a monstrous state of degradation and of infamy 
roused us from our torpor, threw under us and beneath our 
view all other wretchedness, and we recovered (I wish we could 
retain it as easily !) our independence. What depresses you? 



jEschines and phocion. 179 

^SCHINES. 

! could I embody the spirit I receive from yon, and 
present it in all its purity to the Athenians, they would surely 
hear me with as much attention, as that invoker and violator 
of the Gods, Demosthenes, to whom my blood would be the 
most acceptable libation at the feasts of Philip. Pertinacity 
and clamorousness, he imagines, are tests of sincerity and 
truth ; although we know that a weak orator raises his voice 
higher than a powerful one, as the lame raise their legs higher 
than the sound. He censures me for repeating my accusation ; 
he talks of tautology and diffuseness ; he who tells us gravely . 
that a man had lived many years, and . . . what then ? . . . 
that he was rather old when he died ! * Can anything be 
so ridiculous as the pretensions of this man, who, because I 
employ no action, says, action is the first, the second, the third 
requisite of oratory, while he himself is the most ungraceful 
of our speakers, and, even in appealing to the gods, begins by 
scratching his head ? 

PHOCION. 

This is surely no inattention or indifference to the powers 
above. Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being 
near us ; ordinary men gain much. As we are drawing nigh 
to humble buildings, those at a distance beyond them sink 
below : but we may draw so nigh to the grand and elevated 
as to take in only a small part of the whole. I smile at 
reflecting on the levity with which we contemporaries often 
judge of those authors whom posterity will read with most 
admiration : such is Demosthenes. Differ as we may from 
him in politics, we must acknowledge that no language is 
clearer, no thoughts more natural, no words more proper, no 
combinations more unexpected, no cadences more diversified 
and harmonious. Accustomed to consider as the best what 
is at once the niost simple and emphatic, and knowing that 
what satisfies the understanding, conciliates the ear, I think 
him little if at all inferior to Aristoteles in style, though in 
wisdom he is as a mote to a sunbeam ; and superior to my 
master Plato, excellent as he is ; gorgeous indeed, but be- 
comingly, like wealthy kings. Defective however and faulty 
must be the composition in prose, which you and I with our 
uttermost study and attention can not understand. In poetry 
it is not exactly so : the greater share of it must be intelligible 

* Ej&wSe iroWa crrj kcu tjv irpiafivTepos ore ereA^eura. 

N 2 



180 jESCHINES and phocion. 

to the multitude ; but in the best there is often an undersong 
of sense, which none beside the poetical mind, or one deeply 
versed in its mysteries, can comprehend. Euripides and Pindar 
have been blamed by many, who perceived not that the arrow 
drawn against them fell on Homer. The gods have denied to 
Demosthenes many parts of genius; the urbane, the witty, 
the pleasurable, the pathetic. But, O iEschines ! the tree of 
strongest fibre and longest duration is not looked up to for 
its flower nor for its leaf. 

Let us praise whatever we can reasonably : nothing is less 
laborious or irksome, no office is less importunate or nearer 
a sinecure. Above others praise those who contend with 
you for glory, since they have already borne their suffrages 
to your judgment by entering on the same career. Deem 
it a peculiar talent, and what no three men in any age have 
possessed, to give each great citizen or great writer his just 
proportion of applause. A barbarian king or his eunuch can 
distribute equally and fairly beans and lentils ; but I perceive 
that iEschines himself finds a difficulty in awarding just 
commendations. 

A few days ago an old woman, who wrote formerly a poem 
on Codrus, such as Codrus with all his self-devotion would 
hardly have read to save his country, met me in the street, 
and taxed me with injustice toward Demosthenes. 

" You do not know him," said she ; " he has heart, and 
somewhat of genius ; true he is singular and eccentric ; yet I 
assure you I have seen compositions of his that do him credit. 
We must not judge of him from his speeches in public : 
there he is violent; but a billet of his, I do declare, is quite a 
treasure." 

"What answer of yours could be the return for such 
silliness ? 

PHOCION. 

"Lady!" replied I, "Demosthenes is fortunate to be 
protected by the same cuirass as Codrus." 

The commendations of these people are not always, what 
you would think them, left-handed and detractive : for singular 
must every man appear who is different from the rest ; and 
he is most different from them w r ho is most above them. If 
the clouds were inhabited by men, the men must be of other 
form and features than those on earth, and their gait would 



JESCHINES AND PHOCION. 181 

not be the same as upon the grass or pavement. Diversity 
no less is contracted by the habitations, as it were, and haunts, 
and exercises, of our minds. Singularity, when it is natural, 
requires no apology ; when it is affected, is detestable. Such 
is that of our young people in bad handwriting. On my 
expedition to Byzantion, the city decreed that a cloak 
should be given me worth forty drachmas : and, when I was 
about to return, I folded it up carefully, in readiness for any 
service in which I might be employed hereafter. An officer, 
studious to' imitate my neatness, packed up his in the same 
manner, not without the hope perhaps that I might remark 
it, and my servant, or his, on our return, mistook it. I sailed 
for Athens ; he, with a detachment, for Heraclea ; whence he 
wrote to me that he had sent my cloak, requesting his own 
by the first conveyance. The name was quite illegible, and 
the carrier, whoever he was, had pursued his road homeward : 
I directed it then, as the only safe way, if indeed there was 
any safe one, to the officer who writes worst at Heraclea. 

Come, a few more words upon Demosthenes. Do not, my 
friend, inveigh against him, lest a part of your opposition be 
attributed to envy. How many arguments is it worth to him 
if you appear to act from another motive than principle ! 
True, his eloquence is imperfect : what among men is not ? 
In his repartees there is no playfulness, in his voice there is no 
flexibility, in his action there is neither dignity nor grace : but 
how often has he stricken you dumb with his irony ! how often 
has he tossed you from one hand to the other with his inter- 
rogatories ! Concentrated are his arguments, select and distinct 
and orderly his topics, ready and unfastidious his expressions, 
popular his allusions, plain his illustrations, easy the swell and 
subsidence of his periods, his dialect purely attic. Is this no 
merit ? Is it none in an age of idle rhetoricians, who have 
forgotten how their fathers and mothers spoke to them ? 



But what repetitions ! 

PHOCIOX. 

If a thing is good it may be repeated ; not indeed too 
frequently nor too closely, nor in words exactly the same. The 
repetition shows no want of invention : it shows only what is 
uppermost in the mind, and by what the writer is most 
agitated and inflamed. 



182 ^SCHINES AND PHOCION. 

^SCHINES. 

Demosthenes tells us himself, that he has prepared fifty-six 
commencements for his future speeches : how can he foresee 
the main subject of them all ? They are indeed all invectives 
against Philip : but does Demosthenes imagine that Philip is 
not greatly more fertile in the means of annoyance than any 
Athenian is in the terms of vituperation? And which gives 
most annoyance ? Pire and sword ravage far and wide : the 
tongue can not break through the shield nor extinguish the 
conflagration : it brings down many blows, but heals no wounds 
whatever. 

PHOCION. 

I perceive in the number of these overtures to the chorusses 
of the Puries, a stronger argument of his temerity than your 
acuteness hath exposed. He must have believed that Philip 
could not conquer us before he had time enough to compose 
and deliver his fifty-six speeches. I differ from him widely in 
my calculation. But, returning to your former charge, I would 
rather praise him for what he has omitted, than censure him for 
what he has repeated. 

^ESCHINES. 

And I too. 

PHOCION. 

Those words were spoken in the tone of a competitor rather 
than of a comrade, as you soon may be. 

.ESCHINES. 

I am jealous then ? Did I demonstrate any jealousy of him 
when I went into the Peloponese, to second and propel the 
courage his representations of the common danger had excited ? 
where I beheld the youths of Olynthus, sent as slaves and 
donatives to his partisans, in that country of degenerate and 
dastard Greeks ! What his orations had failed to bring about, 
my energy and zeal, my sincerity and singleness of aim, effected. 
The Athenians there followed me to the temple of Agraulos, 
and denounced in one voice the most awful imprecations 
against the Peloponesians corrupted by the gold of Macedon. 

PHOCION. 

You have many advantages over your rival : let him have 
some over you. There are merits which appear demerits to 
vulgar minds and inconsiderate auditors. Many, in the popu- 
lace of hearers and readers, want links and cramps to hold 
together the thoughts that are given them, and cry out if you 



JCSCHI>~E3 AND PHOCIO>\ 1S3 

hurry them on too fast. You must leap over no gap, or you 
leave them behind and startle them from following you. With 
them the pioneer is a cleverer man than the commander. 
I have observed in Demosthenes and Thucydides, that they lay 
it down as a rule, never to say what they have reason to 
suppose would occur to the auditor and reader in consequence 
of anything said before, knowing every one to be more pleased 
and more easily led by us, when we bring forward his thoughts 
indirectly and imperceptibly, than when Ave elbow and outstrip 
them with our own. The sentences of your adversary are 
stout and compact as the Macedonian phalanx, animated and 
ardent as the sacred band of Thebes. Praise him, JEschines, 
if you wish to be victorious ; if you acknowledge you are 
vanquished, then revile him and complain. In composition I 
know not a superior to liim : and in an assembly of the people 
he derives advantages from his defects themselves, from the 
violence of his action and from the vulgarity of his mien. 
Permit him to possess these advantages over you ; look on liim 
as a wrestler whose body is robust, but whose feet rest upon 
something slippery : use your dexterity, and reserve your 
blows. Consider him, if less excellent as a statesman, citizen, 
or soldier, rather as a genius or demon, who, whether bene- 
ficent or malignant, hath, from an elevation far above us, 
launched forth many new stars into the firniainent of mind. 

.ESCHXN'ES. 

that we had been born in other days ! The best men 
always fall upon the worst. 

PHOCIO>". 

The Gods have not granted us, iEschines, the choice of 
being bom when we would ; that of dying when we would, 
they have. Thank them for it, as one among the most 
excellent of their gifts, and remain or go, as utility or dignity 
may require. "Whatever can happen to a wise and virtuous 
man from his worst enemy, whatever is most dreaded by the 
inconsiderate and irresolute, has happened to him frequently 
from himself, and not only without his inconvenience, but 
without his observation. We are prisoners as often as we 
bolt our doors, exiles as often as we walk to Munychia, and 
dead as often as we sleep. It would be a folly and a shame 
to argue that these tilings are voluntary, and that what our 
enemy imposes are not : they should be the more if thev 



184 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

befall us from necessity, unless necessity be a weaker reason 
than caprice. In fine, iEschines, I shall then call the times 
bad when they make me so : at present they are to be borne, 
as must be the storm that follows them. 



ALEXANDEK AND THE PEIEST OF HAMMON. 



ALEXANDER. 



Like my father, as ignorant men called King Philip, I have 
at all times been the friend and defender of the gods. 

PRIEST. 

Hitherto it was rather my belief that the gods may befriend 
and defend us mortals : but I am now instructed that a king 
of Macedon has taken them under his shield. Philip, if report 
be true, was less remarkable for his devotion. 

ALEXANDER. 

He was the most religious prince of the age. 



On what, Alexander, rests the support of such an exalted 
title? 

ALEXANDER. 

Not only did he swear more frequently and more awfully 
than any officer in the army, or any priest in the temples, but 
his sacrifices were more numerous and more costly. 

PRIEST. 

More costly ? It must be either to those wdiose ruin is con- 
summated or to those whose ruin is commenced; in other 
words, either to the vanquished, or to those w T hose ill-fortune 
is of earlier date, the born subjects of the vanquisher. 

ALEXANDER. 

He exhibited the surest and most manifest proof of his 
piety when he defeated (Enomarchus, general of the Phocians, 
who had dared to plough a piece of ground belonging to 
Apollo. 

PRIEST. 

Apollo might have made it as hot work for the Phocians who 



ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 185 

were ploughing his ground, as he formerly did at Troy to those 
unruly Greeks who took away his priest's daughter. He shot 
a good many mules, to show he was in earnest, and would 
have gone on shooting both cattle and men until he came at 
last to the offender. 

ALEXANDER. 

He instructed kings by slaying their people before their 
eyes : surely he would never set so bad an example as striking 
at the kings themselves. Philip, to demonstrate in the presence 
of all Greece his regard for Apollo of Delphi, slew six 
thousand, and threw into the sea three thousand, enemies of 
religion. 

PRIEST. 

Alexander ! Alexander ! the enemies of religion are the 
cruel, and not the sufferers by cruelty. Is it unpardonable in 
the ignorant to be in error about their gods when the wise are 
in doubt about their fathers ? 

ALEXANDER. 

I am not : Philip is not mine. 

PRIEST. 



Probable enough. 



ALEXANDER. 



Who then is, or ought to be, but Jupiter himself ? 

PRIEST. 

The priests of Pella are abler to return an oracle on that 
matter than we of the Oasis. 

ALEXANDER. 

We have no oracle at Pella. 

PRIEST. 

If you had, it might be dumb for once. 

ALEXANDER. 

I am losing my patience. 

PRIEST. 

I have given thee part of mine, seeing thee but scantily 
provided ; yet, if thy gestures are any signification, it sits but 
awkwardly upon thy shoulders. 

ALEXANDER. 

This to me ! the begotten of a god ! the benefactor of all 
mankind. 



186 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

PRIEST. 

Such as Philip was to the three thousand, when he devised 
so magnificent a bath for their recreation. Plenty of pumice! 
rather a lack of napkins ! 

ALEXANDER. 

No trifling ! no false wit ! 

PRIEST. 

True wit, to every man, is that which falls on another. 

ALEXANDER. 

To come at once to the point ; I am ready to prove that 
neither Jason nor Bacchus, in their memorable expeditions, ■ 
did greater service to mankind than I have done, and am about 
to do. 

PRIEST. 

Jason gave them an example of falsehood and ingratitude : 
Bacchus made them drunk : thou appearest a proper successor 
to these worthies. 

ALEXANDER. 

Such insolence to crowned heads ! such levity on heroes 
and gods ! 

PRIEST. 

Hark ye, Alexander ! we priests are privileged. 

ALEXANDER. 

I too am privileged to speak of my own great actions ; if 
not as liberator of Greece and consolidator of her disjointed 
and jarring interests, at least as the benefactor of Egypt and 
of Jupiter. 

PRIEST. 

Here indeed it would be unseemly to laugh ; for it is evident 
on thy royal word that Jupiter is much indebted to thee ; and 
equally evident, from the same authority, that thou wantest 
nothing from him but his blessing . . . unless it be a public 
acknowledgment that he has been guilty of another act of 
bastardy, more becoming his black curls than his grey 
decrepitude. 

ALEXANDER. 

Amazement ! to talk thus of Jupiter ! 

PRIEST. 

Only to those who are in his confidence : a mistress for 
instance, or a son, as thou sayest thou art. 



ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 187 

ALEXANDER. 

Yea, by my head and by my scepter am I. Nothing is 
more certain. 

PRIEST. 

We will discourse upon that presently. 

ALEXANDER. 

Discourse upon it this instant. 

PRIEST. 

How is it possible that Jupiter should be thy father, 
when . . . 

ALEXANDER. 

When what? 

PRIEST. 

Couldst not thou hear me on ? 

ALEXANDER. 

Thou askest a foolish question. 

PRIEST. 

I did not ask whether I should be acknowledged the son of 
Jupiter. 

ALEXANDER. 

Thou indeed ! 

PRIEST. 

Yet, by the common consent of mankind, lands and tene- 
ments are assigned to us, and we are called " divine" as their 
children; and there are some who assert that the gods 
themselves have less influence and less property on earth 
than we. 

ALEXANDER. 

All this is well : only use your influence for your bene- 
factors. 

PRIEST. ' 

Before we proceed any farther, tell me in what manner thou 
art or wilt ever be the benefactor of Egypt. 

ALEXANDER. 

The same exposition will demonstrate that I shall be like- 
wise the benefactor of Jupiter. It is my intention to build a 
city, in a situation very advantageous for commerce : of course 
the frequenters of such a mart will continually make offerings 
to Jupiter. 



188 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

PKIEST. 

For what ? 

ALEXANDER. 

For prosperity. 

PRIEST. 

Alas ! Alexander, the prosperous make few offerings ; and 
Hermes has the dexterity to intercept the greater part of them. 
In Egypt there are cities enow already : I should say too 
many : for men prey upon one another when they are penned 
together close. 

ALEXANDER. 

There is then no glory in building a magnificent city ? 

PRIEST. 

Great may be the glory. 

ALEXANDER. 

Here at least thou art disposed to do me justice. 

PRIEST. 

I never heard until this hour that among thy other attain- 
ments was architecture. 

ALEXANDER. 

Scornful and insolent man ! dost thou take me for an 
architect ? 

PRIEST. 

I was about to do so ; and certainly not in scorn, but to 
assuage the feeling of it. 

ALEXANDER. 

How ? 

PRIEST. 

He who devises the plan of a great city, of its streets, its 
squares, its palaces, its temples, must exercise much reflection 
and many kinds of knowledge : and yet those which strike 
most the vulgar, most even the scientific, require less care, less 
knowledge, less beneficence, than what are called the viler parts, 
and are the most obscure and unobserved ; the construction 
of the sewers ; the method of exempting the aqueducts from the 
incroachment of their impurities ; the conduct of canals for fresh 
air in every part of the house, attempering the summer heats ; 
the exclusion of reptiles ; and even the protection from insects. 
The conveniences and comforts of life, in these countries, 
depend on such matters. 

ALEXANDER. 

My architect, I doubt not, has considered them maturely. 



ALEXANDER AND THE PIUEST OF HAMMON. 189 

PRIEST. 

Who is he ? 

ALEXANDER. 

I will not tell thee : the whole glory is mine : I gave the 
orders, and first conceived the idea. 

PRIEST. 

A hound upon a heap of dust may dream of a fine city, if 
he has ever seen one ; and a madman in chains may dream of 
building it, and may even give directions about it. 

ALEXANDER. 

I will not bear this, 

PRIEST. 

Were it false, thou couldst bear it ; thou wouldst call the 
bearing of it magnanimity ; and wiser men would do the same 
for centuries. As such wisdom and such greatness are not 
what I bend my back to measure, do favor me with what 
thou wert about to say when thou begannest " nothing is more 
certain ; " since I presume it must appertain to geometry, of 
which I am fond. 

ALEXANDER. 

I did not come hither to make figures upon the sand. 

PRIEST. 

Fortunate for thee, if the figure thou wilt leave behind thee 
could be as easily wiped out. 

ALEXANDER. 

What didst thou say ? 

PRIEST. 

I was musing. 

ALEXANDER. 

Even the building of cities is in thy sight neither glorious 
nor commendable. 

PRIEST. 

Truly, to build them is not among the undertakings I the 
most applaud in the powerful ; but to destroy them is the 
very foremost of the excesses I abhor. All the cities of the 
earth should rise up against the man who ruins one. Until 
this sentiment is predominant, the peaceful can have no 
protection, the virtuous no encouragement, the brave no coun- 
tenance, the prosperous no security. We priests communicate 
one with another extensively ; and even in these solitudes thy 
exploits against Thebes have reached and shocked us. What 



190 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

hearts must lie in the bosoms of those who applaud thee for 
preserving the mansion of a deceased poet in the general ruin, 
while the relatives of the greatest patriot that ever drew breath 
under heaven, of the soldier at whose hospitable hearth thy 
father learned all that thou knowest and much more, of 
Epaminondas (clost thou hear me ?) were murdered or 
enslaved. Now begin the demonstration than which " nothing 
is more certain." 

ALEXANDER. 

Nothing is more certain, or what a greater number of 
witnesses are ready to attest, than that my mother Olympias, 
who hated Philip, was pregnant of me by a serpent. 

PRIEST. 

Of what race ? 

ALEXANDER. 

Dragon. 

PRIEST. 

Thy mother Olympias hated Philip, a well-made man, young, 
courageous, libidinous, witty, prodigal of splendour, indifferent 
to wealth, the greatest captain, the most jovial companion, and 
the most potent monarch in Europe. 

ALEXANDER. 

My father Philip, I would have thee to know ... I mean 
my reputed father . . * was also the greatest politician in the 
world. 

PRIEST. 

This indeed I am well aware of ; but I did not number it 
among his excellences in the eyes of a woman : it would have 
been almost the only reason why she should have preferred 
the serpent, the head of the family. "We live here, Alexander, 
in solitude; yet we are not the less curious, but on the 
contrary the more, to learn what passes in the world around. 

Olympias then did really fall in love with a serpent? and 
she was induced . . . 

ALEXANDER, 

Induced ! do serpents induce people ! They coil and climb 
and subdue them. 

PRIEST. 

The serpent must have been dexterous . . . 

ALEXANDER. 

No doubt he was. 



ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OP HAMMON. 191 

PRIEST. 

But women have such an abhorrence of serpents, that 

Olvmpias would surely have rather run away. 

ALEXANDER. 

How could she ? 

PRIEST. 

Or called out. 

ALEXANDER. 

TTonien never do that, lest somebody should hear them. 

PRIEST. 

All mortals seem to bear an innate antipathy to this 
reptile. 

ALEXANDER. 

Mind ! mind what thou sayest ! Do not call my father a 
reptile. 

PRIEST. 

Even thou, with all thy fortitude, wouldst experience a 
shuddering at the sight of a serpent in thy bed-clothes. 

ALEXANDER 

Not at all. Beside, I do not hesitate in mv belief that on 
this occasion it was Jupiter himself. The priests in Macedon 
were unanimous upon it. 

PRIEST. 

"When it happened ? 

ALEXANDER. 

"When it happened no one mentioned it, for fear of Philip. 

PRIEST. 

What would he have done ? 

ALEXANDER. 

He was choleric. 

PRIEST. 

Would he have made war upon Jupiter ? 

ALEXANDER. 

By my soul ! I know not \ but I would have done it in his 
place. As a son, I am dutiful and compliant : as a husband 
and king, there is not a thunderbolt in heaven that should 
deter me from my rights. 

PRIEST. 

Did any of the priesthood see the dragon, as he was entering 

or retreating from the chamber ? 



192 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

ALEXANDER. 

Many saw a great light in it. 

PRIEST. 

He would want one. 

ALEXANDER. 

This seems like irony : sacred things do not admit it. "What 
thousands saw, nobody should doubt. The sky opened, light- 
nings flew athwart it, and strange voices were heard. 

PRIEST. 

Juno's the loudest, I suspect. 

ALEXANDER. 

Being* a" king, and the conqueror of kings, let me remind 
thee, surely I may be treated here with as much deference and 
solemnity as one priest uses toward another. 

PRIEST. 

Certainly with no less, king ! Since thou hast insisted 
that I should devise the best means of persuading the world 
of this awful verity, thou wilt excuse me, in thy clemency, if 
my remarks and interrogatories should appear prolix. 

ALEXANDER. 

Remark anything • but do not interrogate and press me : 
kings are unaccustomed to it. I will consign to thee every 
land from the center to the extremities of Africa ; the Fortu- 
nate lies will I also give to thee, adding the Hyperborean : 
I wish only the consent of the religious who officiate in this 
temple, and their testimony to the world in declaration of my 
parentage. 

PRIEST. 

Many thanks ! we have all we want. 

ALEXANDER. 

I can not think you are true priests then ; and if your oath 
on the divinity of my descent were not my object, and there- 
for not to be abandoned, I should regret that I had offered so 
much in advance, and should be provoked to deduct one half 
of the Fortunate lies, and the greater part of the Hyper- 
borean. 

PRIEST. 

Those are exactly the regions, king, which our modera- 
tion would induce us to resign. Africa, we know, is worth 
little : yet we are as well contented with the almonds, the 



ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OE HAMMON. 193 

dates, the melons, the figs, the fresh butter, the stags, the 
antelopes, the kids, the tortoises, and the quails about us, as 
we should be if they were brought to us after fifty days' 
journey through the desert. 

ALEXANDER. 

Really now, is it possible that, in a matter so evident, your 
oracle can find any obstacle or difficulty in proclaiming me 
what I am ? 

PRIEST. 

The difficulty (slight it must be acknowledged) is this : our 
Jupiter is horned. 

ALEXANDER. 

So was my father. 

PRIEST. 

The children of Jupiter love one another : this we believe 
here in Lybia. 

ALEXANDER. 

And rightly : no affection was ever so strong as that of 
Castor and Pollux. I myself feel a genuine love for them, 
and greater stil for Hercules. 

PRIEST. 

If thou hadst a brother or sister on earth, Jove-born, thou 
wouldst embrace the same most ardently. 

ALEXANDER. 

As becomes my birth and heart. 

PRIEST. 

Alexander ! may thy godlike race never degenerate ! 

ALEXANDER. 

Now indeed the Powers above do inspire thee. 

PRIEST. 

Jupiter, I am -commanded by him to declare, is verily thy 
father. 

ALEXANDER. 

He owns me then ! he owns me ! What sacrifice worthy of 
this indulgence can I offer to him ? 

PRIEST. 

An obedient mind, and a camel-load of nard and amomum 
for his altar. 

ALEXANDER. 

1 smell here the exquisite perfume of benzoin. 



194 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

PRIEST. 

It grows in our vicinity. The nostrils of Jupiter love 
changes : lie is consistent in all parts, being Jupiter. He has 
other sons and daughters in the world, begotten by him under 
the same serpentine form, although unknown to common 
mortals. 

ALEXANDER. 

Indeed ! 

PRIEST. 

I declare it unto thee. 

ALEXANDER. 

I can not doubt it then. 

PRIEST. 

Not all indeed of thy comeliness in form and features, but 
awful and majestic. It is the will of Jupiter, that, like the 
Persian monarchs, whose scepter he hath transferred to thee, 
thou marriest thy sister. 

ALEXANDER. 

Willingly. In what land upon earth liveth she whom thou 
designest for me ? 

PRIEST. 

The Destinies and Jupiter himself have conducted thee, 
Alexander, to the place where thy nuptials shall be cele- 
brated. 

ALEXANDER. 

When did they so ? 

PRIEST. 

Now ; at this very hour. 

ALEXANDER. 

Let me see the bride, if it be lawful to lift up her veil. 

PRIEST. 

Follow me. 

ALEXANDER. 

The steps of this cavern are dark and slippery; but it 
terminates, no doubt, like the Eleusinian, in pure light and 
refreshing shades. 

PRIEST. 

Wait here an instant : it will grow lighter. 

ALEXANDER. 

What do I see yonder ? 



ALEXANDER AXD THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 195 

PRIEST. 

Where? 

ALEXANDER. 

Close under the wall, rising and lowering, regularly and 
slowly, like a long weed on a quiet river, when a fragment 
hath dropt into it from the bank above. 

PRIEST. 

Thou descriest, Alexander, the daughter of Jupiter, the 
watchful virgin, the preserver of our treasures. Without her 
they might be carried away by the wanderers of the desert ; 
but they fear, as they should do, the daughter of Jupiter. 

ALEXANDER. 

Hell and Furies ! what hast thou been saying ? I heard 
little of it. Daughter of Jupiter ! 

PRIEST. 

Hast thou any fancy for the silent and shy maiden ? I will 
leave you together. . . . 

ALEXANDER. 

Orcus and Erebus ! 

PRIEST. 

Be discreet ! Eestrain your raptures until the rites are 
celebrated. 

ALEXANDER. 

Sites ! Infernal pest ! horror ! abomination ! A vast 
panting snake ! 

PRIEST. 

Say cc dragon" king ! and beware how thou callest horrid 
and abominable the truly begotten of our lord thy father. 

ALEXANDER. 

"What means this ? inhuman traitor ! Open the door again : 
lead me back. Are my conquests to terminate in the jaws of 
a reptile ? 

PRIEST. 

Do the kings of ATacedon call their sisters such names ? 

ALEXANDER. 

Let me out, I say ! 

PRIEST. 

Inconstant man ! I doubt even whether themarriage hath 
been consummated. Dost thou question her worthiness ? prove 
her, prove her. TTe have certain signs and manifestations 

o2 



196 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

that Jupiter begat this powerful creature, thy elder sister. 
Her mother hid her shame and confusion in the desert, 
where she stil wanders, and looks with an evil eye on 
everything in the form of man. The poorest, vilest, most 
abject of the sex, holdeth her head no lower than she. 

ALEXANDER. 

Impostor ! 

PRIEST. 

Do not the sympathies of thy heart inform thee that this 
solitary queen is of the same lineage as thine ? 

ALEXANDER. 

"What temerity ! what impudence ! what deceit ! 

PRIEST. 

Temerity ! How so, Alexander ! Surely man can not claim 
too near an affinity to his Creator, if he w r ill but obey him, as 
I know thou certainly wilt in this tender alliance. Impudence 
and deceit were thy other accusations : how little merited ! 
I only traced the collateral branches of the genealogical tree 
thou pointedst out to me. 

ALEXANDER. 

Draw back the bolt : let me pass : stand out of my way. 
Thy hand upon my shoulder ! Were my sword beside me, 
this monster should lick thy blood. 

PRIEST. 

Patience ! king ! The iron portal is in my hand : if the 
hinges turn, thy godhead is extinct. No, Alexander, no ! it 
must not be. 

ALEXANDER. 

Lead me then forth. I swear to silence. 

PRIEST. 

As thou wilt. 

ALEXANDER. 

I swear to friendship ; lead me but out again. 

PRIEST. 

Come ; although I am much interested in the happiness of 
his two children whom I serve. . . . 



ALEXANDER. 



Persecute me no longer ; in the name of Jupiter ! 



ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAaHIOX. 197 



I can hardly give it up. To have been the maker of such a 
match ! what felicity ! what glory ! Think once more upon 
it. There are many who could measure themselves with thee, 
head to head ; let me see the man who will do it with your 
child at the end of the year, if thou embracest with good heart 
and desirable success this daughter of deity. 

ALEXANDER. 

Enough, my friend ! I have deserved it ; but we must 
deceive men, or they will either hate us or despise us. 

PRIEST. 

Now thou talkest reasonably. I here pronounce thy divorce. 
Moreover, thou shalt be the son of Hammon in Libya, of 
Mithras in Persia, of Philip in Maceclon, of Olympian Jove in 
Greece : but never for the future teach priests new creeds. 

ALEXANDER. 

How my father Philip would have laughed over his cups at 
such a story as tins ! 

PRIEST. 

Alexander ! let it prove to thee thy folly. 

ALEXANDER. 

If such is my folly, what is that of others ? Thou wilt 
acknowledge and proclaim me the progeny of Jupiter. 

PRIEST. 

Ay, ay. 

ALEXANDER. 

People must believe it. 

PRIEST. 

The only doubt will be among the shrewder, whether, being 
so extremely old and having left off his pilgrimages so many 
years, he could have given our unworthy world so spirited an 
offspring as thou art. 

Come and sacrifice. 

ALEXANDER. 

Priest ! I see thou art a man of courage : henceforward 
we are in confidence. Take mine with my hand : give me 
thine. Confess to me, as the first proof of- it, didst thou 
never shrink back from so voracious and intractable a monster 
as that accursed snake ? 



198 ALEXANDER AND THE PRIEST OF HAMMON. 

PRIEST. 

"We caught her young, and fed her on goat's milk, as our 
Jupiter himself was fed in the caverns of Crete. 

ALEXANDER. 

Your Jupiter ! that was another. 

PRIEST. 

Some people say so : but the same cradle serves for the 
whole family, the same story will do for them all. As for 
fearing this young personage in the treasury-vault, we fear her 
no more, son Alexander, than the priests of Egypt do his 
holiness the crocodile-god. The gods and their pedagogues 
are manageable to the hand that feeds them. 

ALEXANDER. 

Canst thou talk thus ? 

PRIEST. 

Of false gods, not of the true one. 

ALEXANDER. 

One ! are there not many ? Some dozens ? some hundreds ? 

PRIEST. 

Not in our vicinity ; praised be Hammon ! And plainly to 
speak, there is nowhere another, let who will have begotten 
him, whether on cloud or meadow, feather-bed or barn-floor, 
w r orth a salt locust or a last year's date-fruit. 

These are our mysteries, if thou must needs know them; 
and those of other priesthoods are the like. 

Alexander, my boy, do not stand there, with thy arms 
folded and thy head aside, pondering. Jupiter the Earn for 
ever ! 

ALEXANDER. 

Glory to Jupiter the Ram ! 

PRIEST. 

Thou stoppest on a sudden thy prayers and praises to father 
Jupiter. Son Alexander! art thou not satisfied? What ails 
thee, drawing the back of thy hand across thine eyes ? 

ALEXANDER. 

A little dust flew into them as the door opened. 

PRIEST. 

Of that dust are the sands of the desert and the kings of 
Macedon. 



AIUSTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 199 



AEISTOTELES AND CALLISTHEXES. 



ARISTOTELES. 

I rejoice, CaUisthenes, at your return ; and the more as 
I see you in the dress of your country; while others, who 
appear to me of the lowest rank by their language and physio- 
gnomy, are arrayed in the Persian robe, and mix the essence of 
rose with pitch. 

CALLISTHEXES. 

I thank the Gods, Aristoteles, that I embrace you again ; 
that my dress is a greek one and an old one ; that the con- 
quests of Alexander have cost me no shame and have 
encumbered me with no treasures. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Jupiter! what then are those tapestries, for I will not 
call them dresses, which the slaves are carrying after you, in 
attendance (as they say) on your orders ? 

CALLISTHEXES. 

They are presents from Alexander to Xeno crates ; by which 
he punishes, as he declared to the Macedonians, both me and 
you. And I am well convinced that the punishment will not 
terminate here, but that he, so irascible and vindictive, will 
soon exercise his new dignity of godship, by breaking our 
heads, or, in the wisdom of his providence, by removing them 
an arm's length from our bodies. 

ARISTOTELES. 

On this subject we must talk again. Xenocrates is indeed 
a wise and virtuous man ; and although I could wish that 
Alexander had rather sent him a box of books than a bale of 
woollen, I acknowledge that the gift could hardly have been 
better bestowed. 

CALLISTHEXES. 

You do not appear to value very highly the learning of tins 
philosopher. 

ARISTOTELES. 

To talk and dispute are more the practices of the Platonic 



200 AR1STOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

scliool than to read and meditate. Talkative men seldom read. 
This is among the few truths which appear the more strange 
the more we reflect upon them. For what is reading but silent 
conversation? People make extremely free use of their other 
senses ; and I know not what difficulty they could find or 
apprehend in making use of their eyes, particularly in the 
gratification of a propensity which they indulge so profusely 
by the tongue. The fatigue, you would think, is less ; the 
one organ requiring much motion, the other little. Added to 
which, they may leave their opponent when they please, and 
never are subject to captiousness or personality. In open 
contention with an argumentative adversary, the worst brand a 
victor imposes is a blush. The talkative man blows the fire 
himself for the reception of it • and we can not deny that it 
may likewise be suffered by a reader, if his conscience lies 
open to reproach : yet even in this case, the stigma is illegible 
on his brow ; no one triumphs in his defeat, or even freshens 
his wound, as may sometimes happen, by the warmth of sym- 
pathy. Al] men, you and I among the rest, are more desirous 
of conversing with a great philosopher, or other celebrated 
man, than of reading his works. There are several reasons 
for this ; some of which it would be well if we could deny or 
palliate. In justice to ourselves and him, Ave ought to prefer 
his writings to his speech; for even the wisest say many things 
inconsiderately ; and there never was one of them in the world 
who ever uttered extemporaneously three sentences in succession, 
such as, if he thought soundly and maturely upon them after- 
ward, he would not in some sort modify and correct. Effrontery 
and hardness of heart are the characteristics of every great 
speaker I can mention, excepting Phocion ; and if he is exempt 
from them, it is because eloquence, in which no one ever 
excelled or ever will excell him, is secondary to philosophy in 
this man, and philosophy to generosity of spirit. On the same 
principle as impudence is the quality of great speakers and 
disputants, modesty is that of great readers and composers, 
Ts T ot only are they abstracted by their studies from the facilities 
of ordinary conversation, but they discover, from time to time, 
things of which they were ignorant before, and on which they 
had not even the ability of doubting. We, my Callisthenes, 
may consider them not only as gales that refresh us while they 
propell us forward, but as a more compendious engine of the 
Is, whereby we are brought securely into harbour, and 



ARISTOTELES AND CALLTSTHENES. 201 

deeply laden with imperisliable wealth. Let us then strive 
day and night to increase the number of these beneficent 
beings, and to stand among them in the sight of the living 
and the future. It is required of us that we give more than 
we received. 

CALLISTHENES. 

my guide and teacher ! you are one of the blessed few 
at whose hands the Gods may demand it : if they had intended 
to place it in my duties, they would have chosen me a different 
master. How small a part of what I have acquired from you 
(and to you I owe all of knowledge and wisdom I possess) 
shall I be able to transmit to others ! 

ARISTOTELES. 

Encourage better hopes. Again I tell you, it is required of 
us, not merely that we place the grain in a garner, but that we 
ventilate and sift it, that we separate the full from the empty, 
the faulty from the sound, and that, if it must form the greater, 
it do not form the more elegant part of the entertainment our 
friends expect from us. I am now in the decline of life : 
to shove me from behind would be a boyish trick : but where- 
ever I fall I shall fall softly: the Gods having placed me in a 
path out of which no violence can remove me. In youth our 
senses and the organs of them wander ; in the middle of life 
they cease to do it ; in old age the body itself, and chiefly the 
head, bends over and points to the earth which must soon 
receive it, and partakes in some measure of its torpor. 

CALLISTHEXE3. 

You appear to me fresh and healthy, and your calmness and 
indifference to accidents are the effects of philosophy rather 
than of years. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Plato is older by twenty, and has lost nothing of juvenility 
but the colour of his hair. The higher delights of the mind 
are in this, as in everything else, very different in their effects 
from its seductive passions. These cease to gratify us the 
sooner the earlier we indulge in them : on the contrary, the 
earlier we indulge in thought and reflection the longer do they 
last and the more faithfully do they serve us. So far are they 
from shortening or debilitating our animal life, that they 
prolong and strengthen it greatly. The body is as much at 
repose in the midst of high imaginations as in the midst of 



202 ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

profound sleep. In imperfect sleep it wears away much, as 
also in imperfect thoughts ; in thoughts that can not rise from 
the earth and sustain themselves above it. The object which 
is in a direct line behind a thing, seems near : now nothing is 
in a more direct line than death to life : why should it not 
also be considered, on the first sight, as near at hand ? Swells 
and depressions, smooth ground and rough, usually lie between; 
the distance may be rather more or rather less ; the proximity 
is certain. Alexander, a god, descends from his throne to 
conduct me. 

CALLISTHEXES. 

Endurance on the part of the injured is more pathetic than 
passion. The intimate friends of this conductor will quarrel 
over his carcase while yet warm, as dogs over a dish after 
supper. How different are our conquests from his ! how 
different our friends ! not united for robbery and revelry, but 
joyous in discovery, calm in meditation, and intrepid in research. 
How often, and throughout how many ages, shall you be a 
refuge from such men as he and his accomplices : how often 
will the studious, the neglected, the deserted, fly toward you 
for compensation in the wrongs of fortune, and for solace in 
the rigour of destiny ! His judgment-seat is covered by his 
sepulcher : after one year hence no appeals are made to him : 
after ten thousand there will be momentous questions, not of 
avarice or litigation, not of violence or fraud, but of reason 
and of science, brought before your judgment-seat and settled 
by your decree. Dyers and tailors, carvers and gilders, grooms 
and trumpeters, make greater men than God makes ; but God's 
last longer, throw them where you will. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Alexander hath really punished me by his gifts to Xenocrates ; 
for he obliges me to send him the best tunic I have : and you 
know that in my wardrobe I am, as appears to many, un- 
philosophically splendid. There are indeed no pearls in this 
tunic ; but golden threads pursue the most intricate and most 
elegant design, the texture is the finest of Miletus, the wool 
is the softest of Tarentum, and the purple is Hermionic. He 
will sell Alexander's dresses, and wear mine ; the consequence 
of which will be imprisonment or scourges. 

CALLISTHENES. 

A provident god forsooth in his benefits is our Alexander ! 



ARIST0TELE3 AND CALLISTHENES. 203 



ARISTOTELES. 



Much to be pitied if ever he returns to his senses ! Justly 
do we call barbarians the wretched nations that are governed 
bv one man j and among them the most deeply plunged in 
barbarism is the rider. Let us take any favorable specimen : 
Cyrus for instance, or Canibyses, or this Alexander: for how- 
ever much you and I may despise him, seeing him often and 
nearly, he will perhaps leave behind him as celebrated a name 
as they. He is very little amid philosophers, though very 
great amid monarchs. Is he not undoing with all his might 
what every wise man, and indeed every man in the order of 
things^ is most solicitous to do ? Namely, doth he not abolish 
kindly and affectionate intercourse ? doth he not draw a line 
of distinction (which of all follies and absurdities is the wildest 
and most pernicious) between fidelity and truth? In the 
hoar of distress and misery the eye of every mortal turns to 
friendship : in the hour of gladness and conviviality what is 
our want ? it is friendship. TThen the heart overflows with 
gratitude, or with any other sweet and sacred sentiment, what 
is the word to which it would give utterance? my friend. 
Having thus displaced the right feeling, he finds it necessary to 
substitute at least a strong one. The warmth which should 
have been diffused from generosity and mildness, must come 
from the spiceman, the vintner, and the milliner; he must be 
perfumed, he must be drunk, he mast toss about shawl and 
tiara. You would imagine that his first passion, his ambition, 
had an object : yet, before he was a god, he prayed that no one 
afterward might pass the boundaries of his expedition : and he 
destroyed at Abdera, and in other places, the pillars erected as 
memorials by the Argonauts and by Sesostris. 

CALLISTHE>~E5. 

I have many doubts upon the Argonauts. TVe Greeks are 
fond of attributing to ourselves all the great actions of remote 
antiquity : we feign that Isis, Daughter of Tnaclius, taught the 
Egyptians laws and letters. It may be questioned whether 
the monuments assigned to the Argonauts were not really those 
of Sesostris or Osiris, or some other eastern conqueror ; and 
even whether the tale of Troy be not, in part at least, trans- 
lated. Many principal names, evidently not Grecian, and the 
mention of a language spoken by the Gods (meaning their 
representatives and officials) in which the rivers and other 



204 ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

tilings are professed to be called differently from what they 
were called among men, are the foundations of my query. 
The Hindoos, the Egyptians, and probably the Phrygians (a 
very priestly nation), had their learned language, quite distinct 
from the vulgar.* 

ARISTOTELES. 

We will discuss this question another time. Perhaps you 
were present when Alexander ran around the tomb of Achilles 
in honour of his memory : if Achilles were now living, or any 
hero like him, Alexander would swear his perdition. Neither 
his affection for virtue nor his enmity to vice is pure or rational. 
Observation has taught me that we do not hate those who are 
worse than ourselves because they are worse, but because we 
are liable to injury from them, and because (as almost always 
is the case) they are preferred to us; while those who are 
better we hate purely for being so. After their decease, if we 
remit our hatred, it is because then they are more like virtue 
in the abstract than virtuous men, and are fairly out of our 
way. 

CALLISTHENES. 

Disappointment made him at all times outrageous. What 
is worse, he hated his own virtues in another; as dogs growl 
at their own faces in a mirror. The courage of Tyre, and many 
other cities, provoked not admiration but cruelty. Even his 
friends were unspared; even Clitus and Parmenio. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all : 
if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in 
applying to it the readiest and the surest means of suppression. 
Bonds may hold the weak; the stronger break them, and 
strangle the administrator. Cruelty quite destroys our sym- 
pathies, and, doing so, supersedes and masters our intellects. 
It removes from us those who can help us, and brings against 
us those who can injure us. Hence it opposes the great 
principle of our nature, self-preservation, and endangers not 
only our well-being, but our being. Reason is then the most 
perfect when it enables us in the highest degree to benefit our 
fellow-men ; reason is then the most deranged when there is 
that over it which disables it. Cruelty is that. As for the 

* The Galliamhic of Catullus may be a relic (the only one) of Phrygian 
poetry. He resided in the country, and may have acquired the language ; 
but his translation came through the Greek. 



4- ' 



ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 205 

wisdom of Alexander, I do not expect from a Macedonian, 
surrounded by flatterers and drinkers, the prudence of an 
Epaminondas or a Phocion : but educated by such a father as 
Philip, and having with him in his army so many veteran 
captains, it excited no small ridicule in Athens, when it was 
ascertained that he and Darius, then equally eager for combat, 
missed each other's army in Cilicia. 

CALLISTHENES. 

He has done great things, but with great means; the 
generals you mention overcame more difficulties with less, and 
never were censured for any failure from deficiency of 
foresight. 

AEISTOTELES. 

There is as much difference between Epaminondas and 
Alexander as between the Nile and a winter torrent. In this 
there is more impetuosity, foam, and fury • more astonishment 
from spectators ; but it is followed by devastation and barren- 
ness. In that there is an equable, a stedcly, and perennial 
course, swelling from its ordinary state only for the benefit 
of mankind, and subsiding only when that has been secured. 

I have not mentioned Phocion so often as I ought to have 
done : but now, Callisthenes, I will acknowledge that I con- 
sider him as the greatest man upon earth. He foresaw long 
ago what has befallen our country ; and while others were 
proving to you that your wife, if a good woman, should be at 
the disposal of your friend, and that if you love your children 
you should procure them as many fathers as you can, Phocion 
was practising all the domestic and all the social duties. 

CALLISTHENES. 

I have often thought that his style resembles yours. Are 
you angry ? 

AEISTOTELES. 

I will not dissemble to you that mine was formed upon his. 
Polieuctus, by no means a friend to him, preferred it openly 
to that of Demosthenes, for its brevity, its comprehensiveness, 
and its perspicuity. There is somewhat more of pomp and 
solemnity in Demosthenes, and perhaps of harmony; but his 
warmth is on many occasions the warmth of coarseness, and 
his ridicule the roughest part of him ; while in Phocion there 
is the acuteness of Pericles, and, wherever it is requisite, the 
wit of Aristophanes. He conquered with few soldiers, and he 



206 AlttSTOTELES AND CALLTSTHENES. 

convinced with few words. I know not what better description 
I could give yon, either of a great captain or a great orator. 

Now imagine for a moment the mischief which the system 
of Plato, just alluded to, would produce : that women should 
be common. We hear that among the Etrurians they were so, 
and perhaps are yet : but of what illustrious action do we 
read ever performed by that ancient people ? A thousand 
years have elapsed without a single instance on record of 
courage or generosity. With us one word, altered only in its 
termination, signifies both father and country : can he who is 
ignorant of the one be solicitous about the other? Never 
was there a true patriot who was not, if a father, a kind one : 
never was there a good citizen who w r as not an obedient and 
reverential son. Strange, to be ambitious of pleasing the 
multitude, and indifferent to the delight we may afford to 
those nearest us, our parents and our children ! Ambition is 
indeed the most inconsiderate of passions, none of which are 
considerate; for the ambitious man, by the weakest incon- 
sistency, proud as he may be of his faculties, and impatient as 
he may be to display them, prefers the opinion of the ignorant 
to his own. He would be what others can make him, and 
not what he could make himself without them. Nothing 
in fact is consistent and unambiguous but virtue. 

Plato would make wives common, to abolish selfishness; 
the mischief which above others it would directly and imme- 
diately bring forth. There is no selfishness where there is 
a wife and family : the house is lighted up by the mutual 
charities : everything achieved for them is a victory, every- 
thing endured for them is a triumph. How many vices are 
suppressed, that there may be no bad example ! how many 
exertions made, to recommend and inculcate a good one ! 
Selfishness then is thrown out of the question. He would per- 
haps render men braver by his exercises in the common 
field of affections. Now bravery is of two kinds ; .the courage 
of instinct and the courage of reason : animals have more of 
the former, men more of the latter ; for I would not assert, 
what many do, that animals have no reason, as I would not 
that men have no instinct. Whatever creature can be taught, 
must be taught by the operation of reason upon reason, small 
as may be the quantity called forth or employed in calling it, 
and however harsh may be the means. Instinct has no opera- 
tion but upon the wants and desires. Those who entertain a 



AUISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 207 

contrary opinion, are unaware how inconsequently they speak 
when they employ such expressions as these c We are taught 
bv instinct/ Courage, so necessary to the preservation of 
states, is not weakened by domestic ties, but is braced by them. 
Animals protect their young while they know it to be theirs, 
and neglect it when the traces of that memory are erased. 
Man can not so soon lose the memory of it, because his 
recollective facidties are more comprehensive and more tena- 
cious, and because, while in the brute creation the parental 
love, which in most is only on the female side, lessens after 
the earlier days, his increases as the organs of the new 
creature are developed. There is a desire of property in the 
sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as 
conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage 
and keep alive the arts. Phidias and our friend Apelles would 
never have existed as the Apelles and Phidias they appear, if 
property (I am ashamed of the solecism which Plato now 
forces on me) were in common. A part of his scheme indeed 
may be accomplished in select and small communities, holden 
together by some religious bond, as we find among the disciples 
of Pythagoras : but li€ never taught his followers that prosti- 
tution is a virtue, much less that it is the summit of perfection. 
They revered him, and deservedly, as a father. As what 
father ? Not such as Plato would fashion ; but as a parent 
who had gained authority over his children by his assiduous 
vigilance, his tender and peculiar care, in separating them as 
far as possible from whatever is noxious in an intercourse with 
mankind. 

To complete the system of selfishness, idleness, and licen- 
tiousness, the worshipful triad of Plato, nothing was wanting 
but to throw all other property where he had thrown the wives 
and children. Who then should curb the rapacious ? who 
should moderate the violent ? The w r eaker could not work, 
the stronger would not. Pood and raiment would fail; and 
we should be reduced to something worse than a state of 
nature, into wdiich we can never be cast back, any more than 
we can become children again. Civilisation suddenly retrograde, 
generates at once the crimes and vices, not only of its various 
stages, but of the state anterior to it, without any of its advan- 
tages, if it indeed have any. Plato would make for ever all 
the citizens, what we punish with death a single one for being 
once. He is a man of hasty fancy and indistinct reflection ; 



208 AltlSTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

more different from Socrates than the most violent of his 
adversaries. If he had said that in certain cases a portion of 
landed property should be divided among the citizens, he had 
spoken sagely and equitably. After a long war, when a state 
is oppressed by debt, and when many who have borne arms 
for their country have moreover consumed their patrimony in 
its service, these, if they are fathers of families, should receive 
allotments from the estates of others who are not, and who 
either were too young for warfare, or were occupied in less 
dangerous and more lucrative pursuits. It is also conducive 
to the public good that no person should possess more than a 
certain and definite extent of land, to be limited by the popu- 
lation and produce : else the freedom of vote and the honesty of 
election must be violated, and the least active members of the 
community will occupy those places which require the most 
activity. This is peculiarly needful in mercantile states, 
like ours, that everyone may enjoy the prospect of becoming 
a landholder, and that the money accruing from the sale of 
what is curtailed on the larger properties, may again fall into 
commerce. A state may eventually be reduced to such 
distresses by war, even after victories, that it shall be expe- 
dient to deprive the rich of whatever they possess beyond the 
portion requisite for the decent and frugal sustenance of a 
family. This extremity it is difficult to foresee; nor do I 
think it is arrived at until the industrious and well-educated, 
in years of plenty, are unable by all their exertions to nourish 
and instruct their children. A speculative case, which it can 
not be dangerous or mischievous to state ; for certainly, when 
it occurs, the sufferers will appeal to the laws and forces of 
Nature, and not to the schools of rhetoric or philosophy. No 
situation can be imagined more painful or more abominable 
than this : while many, and indeed most, are worse than that 
whereunto the wealthier would be reduced in amending it; 
since they would lose no comforts, no conveniences, no graceful 
and unincumbering ornaments of life, and few luxuries ; which 
would be abundantly compensated to the generality of them, 
by smoothening their mutual pretensions, and by extinguishing 
the restless spirit of their rivalry. 

CALLISTHENES. 

The visions of Plato have led to Reason: I marvel less 
that he should have been so extravagant, than that he should 



AIUSTOTELES AND CALLISTHENLS. 209 

have scattered on that volume so little of what we admire in 
his shorter Dialogues. 



AMSTOTELES. 



I respect his genius, which however has not accompanied 
all his steps in this discussion : nor indeed do I censure in 
him what has been condemned by Xenophon, who wonders 
that he should attribute to Socrates long dissertations on the 
soul and other abstruse doctrines, when that singularly acute 
reasoner discoursed with his followers on topics only of plain 
utility. For it is requisite that important things should be 
attributed to important men ; and a sentiment w x ould derive 
but small importance from the authority of Crito or Phoedo. 
A much greater fault is attributable to Xenophon himself, 
who has not even preserved the coarse features of nations and 
of ages in his Cyrop&clia. A small circle of wise men should 
mark the rise of mind, as the Egyptian priests marked the 
rise of their river, and should leave it chronicled in their 
temples. Cyrus should not discourse like Solon. 

CALLISTHENES. 

You must likewise. then blame Herodotus. 

AMSTOTELES. 

If I blame Herodotus, whom can I commend ? He reminds 
me of Homer by his facility and his variety, and by the suavity 
and fulness of his language. His view of history was, never- 
theless, like that of the Asiatics, who write to instruct and 
please. Now truly there is little that could instruct, and less 
that could please us, in the actions and speeches of barbarians, 
from among whom the kings alone come forth distinctly. 
Delightful tales and apposite speeches are the best tilings you 
could devise ; and many of these undoubtedly were current in 
the East, and were collected by Herodotus ; some, it is probable, 
were invented by him. It is of no importance to the world 
whether the greater part of historical facts, in such countries, 
be true or false ; but they may be rendered of the highest, by 
the manner in which a writer of genius shall represent them. 
If history were altogether true, it would be not only undig- 
nified but unsightly : great orators would often be merely the 
mouth-pieces of prostitutes, and great captains would be 
hardly more than gladiators or buffoons. The prime movers 
of those actions which appall and shake the world, are 



210 AEISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

generally the vilest things in it; and the historian, if he 
discovers them, must conceal them or hold them back. 

CALLISTHENES. 

Pray tell me whether, since I left Athens, your literary men 
are busy. 

ARISTOTELES. 

More than ever ; as the tettix chirps loudest in time of drought. 
Among them we have some excellent writers, and such as 
(under Pallas) will keep out the Persian tongue from the 
Pirseus. Others are employed in lucrative offices, are made 
ambassadors and salt-surveyors, and whatever else is most 
desirable to common minds, for proving the necessity of more 
effectual (this is always the preamble) and less changeful laws, 
such as those of the Medes and Indians. Several of our 
orators, whose grandfathers were in a condition little better 
than servile, have had our fortunes and lives at their disposal, 
and are now declaiming on the advantages of what they call 
" regular government." You wonld suppose they meant that 
perfect order which exists when citizens rule themselves, and 
when every family is to the republic what every individual is 
to the family ; a system of mutual zeal and mutual forbear- 
ance. No such thing : they mean a government with them- 
selves at the head, and such as may ensure to them impunity 
for their treasons and peculations. One of them a short time 
ago was deputed to consult with Metanyctius, a leading man 
among the Thracians, in what manner and by what instal- 
ments a sum of money, lent to them by our republic, should 
be repaid. Metanyctius burst into laughter on reading the 
first words of the decree. " Dine with me " said he " and we 
will conclude the business when we are alone." The dinner 
was magnificent ; which in such business is the best economy : 
few contractors or financiers are generous enough to give a 
plain one. " Your republic " said Metanyctius " is no longer 
able to enforce its claim ; and we are as little likely to want 
your assistance in future, as you would be inclined to afford 
it. A seventh of the amount is at my disposal : you shall 
possess it. I shall enjoy about the same emolument for my 
fidelity to my worthy masters. The return of peace is so 
desirable, and regular government so divine a blessing, added 
to which, your countrymen are become of late so indifferent 
to inquiry into what the factious call abuses, that, I pledge 



ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 211 

my experience, you will return amid their acclamations and 
embraces." 

Our negotiator became one of the wealthiest men in the 
city, although wealth is now accumulated in some families to 
such an amount, as our ancestors, even in the age of Croesus 
or of Midas, would have deemed incredible. For wars drive 
up riches in heaps, as winds drive up snows, making and 
concealing many abysses. Metanyctius was the more provident 
and the more prosperous of the two. I know not in what 
king's interest he was, but probably the Persian's ; be this as 
it may, it was resolved for the sake of good understanding 
(another new expression) to abolish the name of republic 
throughout the world. This appeared an easy matter. Our 
negotiator rejoiced in the promise exacted from him, to employ 
his address in bringing about a thing so desirable : for republic 
sounded in his ears like retribution. It was then demanded 
that laws should be abolished, and that kings should govern at 
their sole discretion. This was better, but more difficult to 
accomplish. He promised it however ; and a large body of 
barbarian troops was raised in readiness to invade our territory, 
when the decree of Alexander reached the city, ordering that 
the states both of Greece and Asia should retain their pristine 
laws. The conqueror had found letters and accounts which 
his loquacity would not allow him to keep secret ; and the 
negotiator, whose opinion (a very common one) was, that 
exposure alone is ignominy, at last severed his weason with an 
ivory-handled knife. 

CALLISTHENES. 

On this ivory the Goddess of our city will look down with 
more complacency than on that whereof her own image is 
composed ; and the blade should be preserved with those which, 
on the holiest of our festivals, are displayed to us in the 
handful of myrtle, as they were carried by Harmodius and 
Aristogiton. And now tell me, Aristoteles, for the question 
much interests me, are you happy in the midst of Macedonians, 
Illyrians, and other strange creatures, at which we wonder 
when we see their bodies and habiliments like ours ? 

ARISTOTELES. 

Dark reflections do occasionally come, as it were by stealth, 
upon my mind ; but philosophy has power to dispell them. 
I care not whether the dog that defends my house and family 

p2 



212 ARISTOTELES AND CALUSTHENES. 

be of the Laconian breed or the Molossan : if he steals my 
bread or bites the hand that offers it, I strangle him or cut 
his throat, or engage a more dexterous man to do it, the 
moment I catch him sleeping. 

CALLISTHENES. 

The times are unfavorable to knowledge. 

ARISTOTELES, 

Knowledge and wisdom are different. "We may know many 
things without an increase of wisdom; but it would be a 
contradiction to say that we can know anything new without 
an increase of knowledge. The knowledge that is to be 
acquired by communication, is intercepted or impeded by 
tyranny. I have lost an ibis, or perhaps a hippopotamus, by 
losing the favour of Alexander ; he has lost an Aristoteles. 
He may deprive me of life ; but in doing it, he must deprive 
himself of all he has ever been contending for, of glory ; and 
even a more reasonable man than he, will acknowledge that 
there is as much difference between life and glory, as there is 
between an ash-flake from the brow of iEtna, and the untamable 
and eternal fire within its center. I may lose disciples : he 
may put me out of fashion : a tailor's lad can do as much. 
He may forbid the reading of my works ; less than a tailor's 
lad can do that. Idleness can do it, night can do it, sleep 
can do it, a sunbeam rather too hot, a few hailstones, a few 
drops of rain, a call to dinner. By his wealth and power he 
might have afforded me opportunities of improving some 
branches of science, which I alone have cultivated with 
assiduity and success. Fools may make wise men wiser more 
easily than wise men can make them so. At all events, 
Callisthenes, I have prepared for myself a monument, from 
which perhaps some atoms may be detached by time, but 
which will retain the testimonials of its magnificence and the 
traces of its symmetry, when the substance and site of 
Alexander's shall be forgotten. "Who knows but that the very 
ant-hill whereon I stand, may preserve its figure and con- 
texture, when the sepulcher of this Macedonian shall be the 
solitary shed of a robber, or the manger of mules and camels !* 
If I live I will leave behind me the history of our times, from 

* Chrysostom, in his 25th homily, says, that neither the tomb of 
Alexander nor the day of his death was known. Uov, elire /j.oi, to orj/j.a 
AAe^dvdpov ; 5e?|oV /j.ol' kcu dire ttju rifJLtpav /caO' %v ereAeur^cre. 



ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 213 

the accession of Philip to the decease of Alexander. For our 
comet must disappear soon; the moral order of the world 
requires it. How happy and glorious was Greece at the 
commencement of the period ! how pestilential was the folly of 
those rulers, who rendered, by a series of idle irritations and 
untimely attacks, a patient for Anticyra the arbiter of the 
universe ! 

I will now return with you to Plato, whose plan of govern- 
ment, by the indulgence of the gods, has lain hitherto on their 
knees. # 

CALLISTHENES. 

I was unwilling to interrupt you ; otherwise I should have 
remarked the bad consequences of excluding the poets from 
his commonwealth ; not because they are in general the most 
useful members of it, but because we should punish a song 
more severely than a larceny. There are verses in Euripides 
such as every man utters who has the tooth-ache : and all 
expressions of ardent love have the modulation and emphasis 
of poetry. What a spheristerion is opened here to the exer- 
cise of informers ! We should create more of these than we 
should drive out of poets. Judges would often be puzzled in 
deciding a criminal suit ; for, before they could lay down the 
nature of the crime, they must ascertain what are the qualities 
and quantities of a dithyrambic. Now, Aristoteles, I suspect 
that even you can not do this : for I observe in Pindar a vast 
variety of commutable feet, sonorous, it is true, in their 
cadences, but irregular and unrestricted. You avoid, as all 
good writers do carefully, whatever is dactylic ; for the dactyl 
is the bindweed of prose ; but I know not what other author 
has trimmed it with such frugal and attentive husbandry.t 
One alone, in writing or conversation, would subject a man to 
violent suspicion of bad citizenship ; and he who should 

* The Homeric expression for ' remaining to be decreed by them' &ea)v 
€iri yovvacri kgitoli. 

f Callisthenes means the instance where another dactyl, or a spondee, 
follows it ; in which case only is the period to be called dactylic. Cicero 
on one occasion took it in preference to a weak elision, or to the concurrence 
of two esses. 

" Quinctus Mutius augur 
Scsevola multa ; ac . . ." 

He judged rightly ; but he could easily have done better. Longinus 
says that dactyls are the noblest of feet and the most adapted to the 



214 AR1ST0TELES AND CALL1STHENES. 

employ it twice in a page or an oration, would be deemed so 
dangerous and desperate a malefactor, that it might be requisite 
to dig a pitfall or to lay an iron trap for him, or to noose him 
in his bed. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Demosthenes has committed it in his first Philippic, wdiere 
two dactyls and a spondee come after a tumultuous concourse 
of syllables, many sounding alike. ^Ovbe yap ovtos irapa tj\v 
avrov pcoynqv toctovtov €777]v£r)Tai ocrov irapa rr\v rifitrepav 
aixtXeiav. Here are seven dactyls : . the same number is 
nowhere else to be found within the same number of words. 

CALLISTHENES. 

Throughout your works there is certainly no period that 
has not an iambic in it : now our grammarians tell us that one 

sublime. He adduces no proof, although he quotes a sentence of 
Demosthenes as resembling the dactylic. 

Tovro to \l/7](pi(r/JLa rov Tore rr\ iro\€i irepiaraj/Ta 
kiv^vvov TrapeAdeiv €7tol7)o~€V oocnrep vscpos. 

Here is plenty of alliteration, but only one dactyl, for rovro ro is not one, 
being followed by \p. The letter r recurs nine times in fifteen syllables. 
A dactyl succeeded by a dichoree, or by a trochee with a spondee at the 
close, is among the sweetest of pauses ; the gravest and most majestic is 
composed of a dactyl, a dichoree, and a dispondee. He however will soon 
grow tiresome who permits his partiality to any one close to be obtrusive 
or apparent. 

The remark attributed to Callisthenes, on the freedom of Aristoteles 
from pieces of verse in his sentences, is applicable to Plato, and surprisingly, 
if we consider how florid and decorated is his language. Among the 
Romans T. Livius is the most abundant in them ; and among the Greeks 
there is a curious instance in the prefatory words of Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus. <f>u<reoos 877 vdfxos airaai koivos, ov ouSelsj KarakvaeL ^pcWs, 
&px*w ctel rwv rjrropcci/ robs Kpeirrovas. 

These words appear to have been taken from some tragedy : the last 
constitute a perfect iambic ; and the preceding, with scarcely a touch, 
assume the same appearance : the diction too is quite poetical : airao-i 
koivos. . . . KaraXvosi, Sec. 

"ATraai kolv6s iari 7rr)s (frvaeus vofAOS, 
*Ov. . .ouSeis. . .KaraAvaei xp^vos, 
^Apxew ael tSjv 7)tt6voov robs Kpeirrovas* 

In the Gorgias of Plato is the same idea in nearly the same words. 
A77A0? 5e ravra iroWaxov on ovrccs e^ei, teal iv rots &Wois ^owls, nal root/ 
avQpdoiTdov £v oXais reus ir6\€ai kclI yevecriv, on ovtw to hinaiov KtKpLrcu, rov 
Kpeirrca rod rirrovos &px*w k<u ttAcW %x eLV ' 



ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 215 

is enough to make a verse, as one theft is enough to make a 
thief : an informer then has only to place it last in his bill of 
indictment, and not Minos himself could absolve you. 

ARISTOTELES. 

They will not easily take me for a poet. 

CALLISTHENES. 

Nor Plato for anything else : he would be like a bee caught 
in his own honey. 

ARISTOTELES. 

I must remark to you, Callisthenes, that among the writers 
of luxuriant and florid prose, however rich and fanciful, there 
never was one who wrote good poetry. Imagination seems to 
start back when they would lead her into a narrower walk, and 
to forsake them at the first prelude of the lyre. Plato has 
written much poetry, of which a few epigrams alone are 
remembered. He burned his iambics, but not until he found 
that they were thoroughly dry and withered. If ever a good 
poet should excel! in prose, we, who know how distinct are the 
qualities, and how great must be the comprehension and the 
vigour that unites them, shall contemplate him as an object of 
wonder, and almost of worship. It is remarkable in Plato 
that he is the only florid writer who is animated. He will 
always be admired by those who have attained much learning 
and little precision, from the persuasion that they understand 
him, and that others do not; for men universally are ungrateful 
toward him who instructs them, unless in the hours or in the 
intervals of instruction he present a sweet cake to their self- 
love. 

CALLISTHENES. 

I never saw two men so different as you and he. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Yet many of those sentiments in which we appear most at 
variance, can be drawn together until they meet. I had 
represented excessive wealth as the contingency most dangerous 
to a republic; he took the opposite side, and asserted that 
excessive poverty is more.* Now wherever there is excessive 
wealth, there is also in the train of it excessive poverty ; as 

* It is evident that Aris to teles wrote his Polity after Plato, for he 
animadverts on a false opinion of Plato's in the prooemium : but. many of 
the opinions must have been promulgated by both, before the publication 
of their works. 



216 ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

where the sun is brightest the shade is deepest. Many republics 
have stood for ages, while no citizen of them was in very great 
affluence, and while on the contrary most were very poor : but 
none hath stood long after many, or indeed a few, have grown 
inordinately wealthy. Riches cause poverty, then irritate, then 
corrupt it \ so throughout their whole progress and action they 
are dangerous to the state. Plato defends his thesis with his 
usual ingenuity ; for if there is nowhere a worse philosopher, 
there is hardly anywhere a better writer. He says, and truly, 
that the poor become wild and terrible animals, when they no 
longer can gain their bread by their trades and occupations : 
and that, laden to excess with taxes, they learn a lesson from 
Necessity, which they never would have taken up without her. 
Upon this all philosophers, all men of common sense indeed, 
think alike. Usually, if not always, the poor are quiet while 
there is among them no apprehension of becoming poorer, that 
is, while the government is not oppressive and unjust : but the 
rich are often the most satisfied while the government is the 
most unjust and oppressive. In civil dissensions, we find the 
wealthy lead forth the idle and dissolute poor against the 
honest and industrious ; and generally with success ; because 
the numbers are greater in calamitous times; because this 
party has ready at hand the means of equipment ; because the 
young and active, never prone to reflection, are influenced 
more by the hope of a speedy fortune than by the calculation 
of a slower ; and because there are few so firm and independent 
as not to rest willingly on patronage, or so blind and indifferent 
as not to prefer that of the most potent. 

In writing on government, we ought not only to search for 
Avhat is best, but for what is practicable. Plato has done 
neither, nor indeed has he searched at all ; instead of it he has 
thought it sufficient to stud a plain argument with an endless 
variety of bright and prominent topics. Now diversity of 
topics has not even the merit of invention in every .case : he is 
the most inventive who finds most to say upon one subject, 
and renders the whole of it applicable and useful. Splendid 
things are the most easy to find and the most difficult to 
manage. If I order a bridle for my horse, and he of whom I 
order it brings me rich trappings in place of it, do I not justly 
deem it an importunate and silly answer to my remonstrances, 
when he tells me that the trappings are more costly than the 
bridle ? 



ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 217 

Be assured, my Callisthenes, I speak not from any disrespect 
to a writer so highly and so justly celebrated. Reflecting with 
admiration upon his manifold and extraordinary endowments, 
I wish the more earnestly he always had been exempt from 
contemptuousness and malignity. We have conversed hereto- 
fore on his conduct toward Xenophon, and indeed toward 
other disciples of Socrates, whom the same age and the same 
studies, and whom the counsels and memory of the same 
master, should have endeared to him. Toward me indeed he 
is less blameable. I had collected the documents on which T 
formed an exact account of the most flourishing states, and of 
the manners, laws, and customs, by which they were so, being 
of opinion that no knowledge is of such utility to a common- 
wealth. I had also, as you remember, drawn up certain rules 
for poetry, taking my examples from Homer principally, and 
from our great dramatists. Plato immediately forms a republic 
in the clouds, to overshadow all mine at once, and descends 
only to kick the poets through the streets. Homer, the chief 
object of my contemplation, is the chief object of his attack. 
I acknowledge that poets of the lower and middle order are in 
general bad members of society : but the energies which exalt 
one to the higher, enable him not only to adorn but to protect 
his country. Plato says, the gods are degraded by Homer : 
yet Homer has omitted those light and ludicrous tales of them, 
which rather suit the manners of Plato than his. He thought 
about the gods, I suspect, just as you and I do, and cared as 
little how Homer treated them : yet, with the prison of Socrates 
before his eyes, and his own Dialogues under them, he had the 
cruelty to cast forth this effusion against the mild Euripides. 
His souls and their occupancy of bodies are not to be spoken 
of with gravity, and, as I am inclined for the present to keep 
mine where it is, I will be silent on the subject. 

CALLISTHEXES. 

I must warn you, my friend and teacher, that your Macedo- 
nian pupil is likely to interrupt your arrangements in that 
business. I am informed, and by those who are always credible 
in such assertions, that, without apologies, excuses, and pro- 
testations, Aristoteles will follow the shades of Clitus and 
Parmenio. There is nothing of which Alexander is not 
jealous; no, not even eating and drinking. If any great 
work is to destroyed, he must do it with his own hands. After 



218 ARISTOTELES AND CALLISTHENES. 

he had burned down the palace of Cyrus, the glory of which 
he envied a strumpet, one Polemarchus thought of winning his 
favour by demolishing the tomb : he wept for spite and hanged 
him. Latterly he has been so vain, mendacious, and irrational, 
as to order not only suits of armour of enormous size, but 
even mangers commensurate, to be buried in certain parts 
where his battles were fought, that when in after-ages they 
happen to be dug up, it may appear that his men and horses 
were prodigious. If he had sent the report before him he 
would have been somewhat less inconsiderate, for it might 
among weak barbarians have caused terror and submission. 
But by doing as he did, he would leave a very different 
impression from what he designed, if indeed men regarded it 
at all ; for no glory could arise from conquering with such 
advantages of superior force. They who are jealous of power, 
are so from a consciousness of strength : they who are jealous 
of wisdom, are so from a consciousness of wanting it. Weak- 
ness has its fever . . . But you appear grave and thoughtful. 

ARISTOTELES. 

The barbarians no more interest me than a shoal of fishes 
would do. 

CALLISTHENES. 

I entertain the same opinion. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Of their rulers equally ? 

CALLISTHENES. 

Yes, certainly; for among them there can be no other 
distinction than in titles and in dress. A Persian and a Mace- 
donian, an Alexander and a Darius, if they oppress the liberties 
of Greece, are one. 

ARISTOTELES. 

Now, Callisthenes ! if Socrates and Anytos were in the 
same chamber, if the wicked had mixt poison for the virtuous, 
the active in evil for the active in good, and some Divinity had 
placed it in your power to present the cup to either, and, 
touching your head, should say, " This head also is devoted to 
the Eumenides if the choice be wrong/'' what would you 
resolve ? 

CALLISTHENES. 

To do that by command of the god which I would likewise 
have done without it. 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERXISSA. 219 

ARISTOTELES. 

Bearing in mind that a myriad of conquerors is not worth 
the myriadth part of a wise and virtuous man, return, 
Callisthenes, to Babylon, and see that your duty be performed. 



EPICTJEUS,* LEONTION, AND TEBNISSA. 

LEONTION. 

Your situation for a garden, Epicurus, is, I think, very 
badly chosen. 

EPICURUS. 

Why do you think so, my Leontion ? 

LEONTION. 

First, because it is more than twenty stadia t from the city. 

EPICURUS. 

Certainly the distance is inconvenient, my charming friend ! 
it is rather too far off for us to be seen, and rather too near 
for us to be regretted. Here however I shall build no villa, 

* Cicero was an opponent of Epicurus, yet in his treatise On Friendship 
he says, "De qua. Epicurus quidem ita dicit ; omnium rerum quas ad beate 
vivendum sapientia comparaverit, nihil esse majus amicitia ; nihil uberius, 
nihil jucundius." This is oratorical and sententious : he goes on, praising 
the founder and the foundation. " Xeque vero hoc oratione solum sed 
multo magis vita et moribus comprobavit. Quod quani magnum sit, fictae 
veterum fabulse declarant, in quibus tarn multis tamque variis ab ultima 
antiquitate repetitis, tria vix amicorum paria reperiuntur, ut ad Orestem 
pervenias profectus a Theseo. At vero Epicurus una in domo, et ea quidem 
angusta, quam magnos quantaque amoris conspiratione consentientes tenuit 
amicorum greges. Quod fit etiam nunc ao Epicureis." Certain it is, that 
moderation, forbearance, and what St. Paul calls charity, never flourished 
in any sect of philosophy or religion, so perfectly and so long as among 
the disciples of Epicurus. 

Cicero adds in another work, " De sanctitate, de pietate adversus Deos 
libros scripsit Epicurus : at quomodo in his loquitur I ut Coruncanium 
aut Scaevolam Pontifices Maximos te audire dicas." 

Seneca, whose sect was more adverse, thus expresses his opinion : li Mea 
quidem ista sententia (et hoc nostris invitis popularibus dicam) sancta 
Epicurum et recta prsecipere, et, si propius access eris, tristia/' 
f Two miles and a half. 



2:20 epicuhus, leontion, and ternissa. 

nor anything else, and the longest time we can be detained, is 
from the rising to the setting sun. Now, pray, your other 
reason why the spot is so ineligible. 

LEONTION. 

Because it commands no view of the town or of the harbour, 
unless we mount upon that knoll, where we could scarcely 
stand together, for the greater part is occupied by those three 
pinasters, old and horrible as the three Furies. Surely you 
will cut them down. 

EPICURUS. 

Whatever Leontion commands. To me there is this advan- 
tage in a place at some distance from the city. Having by 
no means the full possession of my faculties where I hear 
unwelcome and intrusive voices, or unexpected and irregular 
sounds that excite me involuntarily to listen, I assemble and 
arrange my thoughts with freedom and with pleasure in the 
fresh air, under the open sky : and they are more lively and 
vigorous and exuberant when I catch them as I walk about, 
and commune with them in silence and seclusion. 

LEONTION. 

It always has appeared to me that conversation brings them 
forth more readily and plenteously ; and that the ideas of one 
person no sooner come out than another's follow them, whether 
from the same side or from the opposite. 

EPICURUS. 

They do : but these are not the thoughts we keep for seed : 
they come up weak by coming up close together. In the 
country the mind is soothed and satisfied : here is no restraint 
of motion or of posture. These things, little and indifferent 
as they may seem, are not so : for the best tempers have need 
of ease and liberty, to keep them in right order long enough 
for the purposes of composition : and many a froward axiom, 
many an inhumane thought, hath arisen from sitting incon- 
veniently, from hearing a few unpleasant sounds, from the 
confinement of a gloomy chamber, or from the want of 
symmetry in it. We are not aware of this, until we find an 
exemption from it in groves, on promontories, or along the 
sea-shore, or wherever else we meet Nature face to face, 
undisturbed and solitary. 

TERNISSA. 

You would wish us then away ? 



I 
EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 221 

EPICURUS. 

I speak of solitude : you of desolation. 

TERNISSA. 

flatterer ! is this philosophy ? 

EPICURUS. 

Yes; if you are a thought the richer or a moment the 
happier for it. 

TERNISSA. 

Write it down then in the next volume you intend to 
publish. 

LEOXTION. 

1 interpose and controvert it. That is not philosophy which 
serves only for one. 

EPICURUS. 

Just criterion ! I will write down your sentence instead, and 
leave mine at the discretion of Ternissa. And now, my 
beautiful Ternissa, let me hear your opinion of the situation I 
have chosen. I perceive that you too have fixed your eyes on 
the pinasters. 

TERNISSA. 

I will tell you in verses ; for I do think these are verses, or 
nearly : 

I hate those trees that never lose their foliage : 
They seem to have no sympathy with Nature : 
Winter and Summer are alike to them. 

The broad and billowy summits of yon monstrous trees, 
one would imagine, w T ere made for the storms to rest upon 
when they are tired of raving. And what bark ! It occurs 
to me, Epicurus, that I have rarely seen climbing plants attach 
themselves to these trees, as they do to the oak, the maple, the 
beech, and others. 

LEONTION. 

If your remark be true, perhaps the resinous are not 
embraced by them so frequently because they dislike the odour 
of the resin, or some other property of the juices ; for they 
too have their affections and antipathies, no less than their 
countries and their climes. 

TERNISSA. 

Tor shame ! what would you with me ? 



t 
222 epicuhus, raoNTioir, and ternissa. 

EPICURUS. 

I would not interrupt you while you were speaking, nor while 
Leontion was replying ; this is against my rules and practice ; 
having now ended, kiss me, Ternissa ! 

TERNISSA. 

Impudent man ! in the name of Pallas, why should I kiss 
you? 

EPICURUS. 

Because you expressed hatred. 

TERNISSA. 

Do we kiss when we hate ? 

EPICURUS. 

There is no better end of hating. The sentiment should 
not exist one moment ; and if the hater gives a kiss on being 
ordered to do it, even to a tree or a stone, that tree or stone 
becomes the monument of a fault extinct. 

TERNISSA. 

I promise you I never will hate a tree again. 

EPICURUS. 

I told you so. 

LEONTION. 

Nevertheless I suspect, my Ternissa, you will often be 
surprised into it. I was very near saying, "1 hate these 
rude square stones ! " Why did you leave them here, 
Epicurus ? 

EPICURUS. 

It is true, they are the greater part square, and seem to have 
been cut out in ancient times for plinths and columns : they 
are also rude. Eemoving the smaller, that I might plant 
violets and cyclamens and convolvuluses and strawberries, and 
such other herbs as grow willingly in dry places, I left a few 
of these for seats, a few for tables and for couches. 

LEONTION. 

Delectable couches ! 

EPICURUS. 

Laugh as you may, they will become so when they are 
covered with moss and ivy, and those other two sweet plants, 
wdiose names I do not remember to have found in any ancient 
treatise, but wdaich I fancy I have heard Theophrastus call 
" Leontion " and " Ternissa." 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 223 

TERNISSA. 

The bold insidious false creature ? 

EPICURUS. 

What is that volume ? may I venture to ask, Leontion ? 
Why do you blush ? 

LEONTION. 

I do not blush about it. 

EPICURUS. 

You are offended then, my dear girl. 

LEONTION. 

No, nor offended. I will tell you presently what it contains. 
Account to me first for your choice of so strange a place to 
walk in : a broad ridge, the summit and one side barren, the 
other a wood of rose-laurels impossible to penetrate. The 
worst of all is, we can see nothing of the city or the Parthenon, 
unless from the very top. 

EPICURUS. 

The place commands, in my opinion, a most perfect 
view. 

LEONTION. 

Of what, pray ? 

EPICURUS. 

Of itself; seeming to indicate that we, Leontion, who 
philosophise, should do the same. 



Go on, go on ! say what you please : I will not hate anything 
yet. Why have you torn up by the root all these little 
mountain ash-trees ? This is the season of their beauty : 
come, Ternissa, let us make ourselves necklaces and armlets, 
such as may captivate old Sylvanus and Pan : you shall have 
your choice. But why have you torn them up ? 

EPICURUS. 

On the contrary, they were brought hither this morning. 
Sosimenes is spending large sums of money on an olive-ground, 
and has uprooted some hundreds of them, of all ages and 
sizes. I shall cover the rougher part of the hill with them, 
setting the clematis and vine and honey-suckle against them, 
to unite them. 

TERNISSA. 

what a pleasant thing it is to walk in the green light of 



224 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

the vine-leaves, and to breathe the sweet odour of their invisible 
flowers ! 

EPICURUS. 

The scent of them is so delicate that it requires a sigh to 
inhale it; and this, being accompanied and followed by 
enjoyment, renders the fragrance so exquisite. Ternissa, it is 
this, my sweet friend, that made you remember the green light 
of the foliage, and think of the invisible flowers as you would 
of some blessing from heaven. 

TERNISSA. 

I see feathers flying at certain distances just above the 
middle of the promontory : what can they mean ? 

EPICURUS. 

Can not you imagine them to be feathers from the wings of 
Zethes and Calais, who came hither out of Thrace to behold 
the favorite haunts of their mother Orithyeia ? Prom the 
precipice that hangs over the sea a few paces from the pinasters, 
she is reported to have been carried off by Boreas ; and these 
remains of the primeval forest have always been held sacred on 
that belief. 

LEONTION. 

The story is an idle one^ 

TERNISSA. 

no, Leontion ! the story is very true. 

LEONTION. 

Indeed ? 

TERNISSA. 

1 have heard not only odes, but sacred and most ancient 
hymns upon it ; and the voice of Boreas is often audible here, 
and the screams of Orithyeia. 

LEONTION. 

The feathers then really may belong to Calais and Zethes. 

TERNISSA. 

I don't believe it: the winds would have carried them 
away. 

LEONTION. 

The Gods, to manifest their power, as they often do by 
miracles, could as easily fix a feather eternally on the most 
tempestuous promontory, as the mark of their feet upon the 
flint. 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 225 



They could indeed : but we know the one to a certainty, 
and have no such authority for the other. I have seen these 
pinasters from the extremity of the Piraeus, and have heard 
mention of the altar raised to Boreas : where is it ? 

EPICURUS. 

As it stands in the center of the platform, we can not see it 
from hence : there is the only piece of level ground in the 
place. 

LEONTION. 

Ternissa intends the altar to prove the truth of the 
story. 

EPICURUS. 

Ternissa is slow to admit that even the young can deceive, 
much less the old : the gay, much less the serious. 

LEONTION. 

It is as wise to moderate our belief as our desires. 

EPICURUS. 

Some minds require much belief, some thrive on little. 
Rather an exuberance of it is feminine and beautiful. It acts 
differently on different hearts : it troubles some, it consoles 
others : in the generous it is the nurse of tenderness and 
kindness, of heroism and self-devotion : in the ungenerous it 
fosters pride, impatience of contradiction and appeal, and, like 
some waters, what it finds a dry stick or hollow straw, it leaves 
a stone. 

TERNISSA. 

"We want it chiefly to make the way of death an easy one. 

EPICURUS. 

There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the 
easy ones that lie- within it. I would adorn and smoothen the 
declivity, and make my residence as commodious as its situa- 
tion and dimensions may allow : but principally I would cast 
underfoot the empty fear of death. 

TERNISSA. 

! how can you ? 

EPICURUS. 

By many arguments already laid down : then by tliinking 
that some perhaps, in almost every age, have been timid and 
delicate as Ternissa ; and yet have slept soundly, have felt no 

Q 



226 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

parent's or friend's tear upon their faces, no throb against 
their breasts : in short, have been in the calmest of all possible 
conditions, while those around were in the most deplorable and 
desperate. 

TERNISSA. 

It would pain me to die, if it were only at the idea that 
anyone I love would grieve too much for me. 

EPICURUS. 

Let the loss of our friends be our only grief, and the 
apprehension of displeasing them our only fear. 

LEONTION. 

No apostrophes ! no interjections ! Your argument was 
unsound ; your means futile. 

EPICURUS. 

Tell me then, whether the horse of a rider on the road 
should not be spurred forward if he started at a shadow. 

LEONTION. 

Yes. 

EPICURUS. 

I thought so : it would however be better to guide him 
quietly up to it, and to show him that it was one. Death is 
less than a shadow : it represents nothing, even imperfectly. 

LEONTION. 

Then at the best what is it ? why care about it, think about 
it, or remind us that it must befall us ? Would you take the 
same trouble, when you see my hair entwined with ivy, to make 
me remember that, although the leaves are green and pliable, 
the stem is fragile and rough, and that before I go to bed I 
shall have many knots and intanglements to extricate ? Let 
me have them ; but let me not hear of them until the time 
is come. 

EPICURUS. 

I would never think of death as an embarrassment, but as 
a blessing. 

TERNISSA. 

How ! a blessing ? 

EPICURUS. 

"What, if it makes our enemies cease to hate us ? what, if 
it makes our friends love us the more ? 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 227 

LEONTION. 

Us ? According to your doctrine, we shall not exist 
at all. 

EPICURUS. 

I spoke of that which is consolatory while we are here, and 
of that which in plain reason ought to render us contented to 
stay no longer. You, Leontion, would make others better : 
and better they certainly will be, when their hostilities languish 
in an empty field, and their rancour is tired with treading upon 
dust. The generous affections stir about us at the dreary 
hour of death, as the blossoms of the Median apple swell and 
diffuse their fragrance in the cold. 

TERNISSA. 

I can not bear to think of passing the Styx, lest Charon 
should touch me : he is so old and wilful, so cross and ugly. 

EPICURUS. 

Ternissa ! Ternissa ! I would accompany you thither, and 
stand between. Would not you too, Leontion ? 

LEONTION. 

I don't know. 

TERNISSA. 

O ! that we could go together ! 

LEONTION. 

Indeed ! 

TERNISSA. 

All three, I mean . . I said . . or was going to say it. How 
ill-natured you are, Leontion ! to misinterpret me ; I could 
almost cry. 

LEONTION. 

Do not, do not, Ternissa ! Should that tear drop from your 
eyelash you would look less beautiful. 

EPICURUS. 

Whenever I see a tear on a beautiful young face, twenty of 
mine run to meet it. If it is well to conquer a world, it is 
better to conquer two. 

TERNISSA. 

That is what Alexander of Macedon wept because he could 
not accomplish. 

EPICURUS. 

Ternissa ! we three can accomplish it ; or any one of us. 

Q 2 



228 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

TERNISSA. 

How ? pray ! 

EPICURUS. 

We can conquer this world and the next : for you will have 
another, and nothing should be refused you. 

TERNISSA. 

The next by piety : but this, in what manner ? 

EPICURUS. 

By indifference to all who are indifferent to us ; by taking 
joyfully the benefit that conies spontaneously; by wishing no 
more intensely for what is a hair's breadth beyond our reach 
than for a draught of water from the Ganges ; and by fearing 
nothing in another life. 

TERNISSA. 

This, Epicurus ! is the grand impossibility. 

EPICURUS. 

Do you believe the gods to be as benevolent and good as 
you are ? or do you not ? 

TERNISSA. 

Much kinder, much better in every way. 

EPICURUS. 

Would you kill or hurt the sparrow that you keep in your 
little dressing-room with a string around the leg, because he 
hath flown where you did not wish him to fly ? 

TERNISSA. 

No : it would be cruel : the string about the leg of so little 
and weak a creature is enough. 

EPICURUS. 

You think so ; I think so ; God thinks so. This I may 
say confidently : for whenever there is a sentiment in which 
strict justice and pure benevolence unite, it must be his. 

TERNISSA. 

Epicurus ! when you speak thus . . . 

LEONTION. 

Well, Ternissa ! what then ? 

TERNISSA. 

When Epicurus teaches us such sentiments as this, I am 
grieved that he has not so great an authority with the Athenians 
as some others have. 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TETLNISSA. 229 

LEONTION. 

You will grieve more, I suspect, my Ternissa, when he 
possesses that authority. 

TERNISSA. 

What will he do ? 

LEONTION. 

"Why turn pale ? I am not about to answer that he will 
forget or leave you. No ; but the voice comes deepest from 
the sepulcher, and a great name hath its root in the dead body. 
If you invited a company to a feast, you might as well place 
round the table live sheep and oxen, and vases of fish and 
cages of quails, as you would invite a company of friendly 
hearers to the philosopher who is yet living.* One would 
imagine that the iris of our intellectual eye were lessened by 
the glory of his presence, and that, like eastern kings, he 
could be looked at near only when his limbs are stiff, by wax- 
light, in closed curtains. 

EPICURUS. 

One of whom we know little leaves us a ring or other 
token of remembrance, and we express a sense of pleasure and 
of gratitude ; one of whom we know nothing writes a book, 
the contents of which might (if we would let them) have done 
us more good and might have given us more pleasure, and we 
revile him for it. The book may do what the legacy can not ; 
it may be pleasurable and serviceable to others as well as 
ourselves : we would hinder this too. In fact, all other love 
is extinguished by self-love : beneficence, humanity, justice, 
philosophy, sink under it. While we insist that we are looking 
for Truth, we commit a falsehood. It never was the first 
object with anyone, and with few r the second. 

Feed unto replenishment your quieter fancies, my sweetest 
little Ternissa ! and let the gods, both youthful and aged, both 
gentle and boisterous, administer to them hourly on these 
sunny downs : what can they do better ? 

LEONTION. 

But those feathers, Ternissa, what god's may they be ? 

* Seneca quotes a letter of Epicurus, in which his friendship with 
Metrodorus is mentioned, with a remark that the obscurity in which they 
had lived, so great indeed as to let them rest not only unknown, but almost 
unheard of, in the midst of Greece, was by no means to be considered as 
an abatement of their good fortune. 



230 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

since you will not pick tliem up, nor restore them to Calais 
nor to Zethes. 

TERNISSA. 

I do not think they belong to any god whatever; and 
shall never be persuaded of it unless Epicurus say it is so. 

LEONTION. 

unbelieving creature ! do you reason against the im- 
mortals. 

TERNISSA. 

It was yourself who doubted, or appeared to doubt, the 
flight of Orithyeia. By admitting too much we endanger our 
religion. Beside, I think I discern some upright stakes at 
equal distances, and am pretty sure the feathers are tied to 
them by long strings. 

EPICURUS. 

You have guessed the truth. 



TERNISSA. 



Of what use are they there : 

EPICURUS. 

If you have ever seen the foot of a statue broken off just 
below the ankle, you have then, Leontion and Ternissa, seen 
the form of the ground about us. The lower extremities of it 
are divided into small ridges, as you will perceive if you look 
round \ and these are covered with corn, olives, and vines. 
At the upper part, where cultivation ceases, and where those 
sheep and goats are grazing, begins my purchase. The ground 
rises gradually unto near the summit, where it grows somewhat 
steep, and terminates in a precipice. Across the middle I 
have traced a line, denoted by those feathers, from one dingle 
to the other ; the two terminations of my intended garden. 
The distance is nearly a thousand paces, and the path, perfectly 
on a level, will be two paces broad, so that I may walk between 
you; but another could not join us conveniently. Prom this 
there will be several circuitous and spiral, leading by the easiest 
ascent to the summit ; and several more, to the road along the 
cultivation underneath : here will however be but one entrance. 
Among the projecting fragments and the massive stones yet 
standing of the boundary-wall, which old pomegrantes imper- 
fectly defend, and which my neighbour has guarded more 
effectively against invasion, there are hillocks of crumbling 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 231 

mould, covered in some places with a variety of moss ; on 
others are elevated tufts, or dim labyrinths, of eglantine. 

TERNISSA. 

Where will you place the statues ? for undoubtedly you 
must have some. 

EPICURUS. 

I will have some models for statues. Pygmalion prayed the 
gods to give life to the image he adored : I will not pray them 
to give marble to mine. Never may I lay my wet cheek upon 
the foot under which is inscribed the name of Leontion or 
Ternissa ! 

LEONTION. 

Do not make us melancholy : never let us think that the 
time can come when we shall lose our friends. Glory, 
literature, philosophy, have this advantage over friendship : 
remove one object from them, and others fill the void; remove 
one from friendship, one only, and not the earth, nor the 
universality of worlds, no, nor the intellect that soars above 
and comprehends them, can replace it. 

EPICURUS. 

Dear Leontion ! always amiable, always graceful ! how 
lovely do you now appear to me ! what beauteous action 
accompanied your words ! 

LEONTION. 

I used none whatever. 

EPICURUS. 

That white arm was then, as it is now, over the shoulder of 
Ternissa ; and her breath imparted a fresh bloom to your cheek, 
a new music to your voice. No friendship is so cordial or so 
delicious as that of girl for girl; no hatred so intense and 
immovable as that of woman for woman. In youth you love 
one above the others of your sex : in riper age you hate all, 
more or less, in proportion to similarity of accomplishments 
and pursuits ; which sometimes (I wish it were oftener) are 
bonds of union to men. In us you more easily pardon faults 
than excellences in each other. Your tempers are such, my 
beloved scholars, that even this truth does not ruffle them ; and 
such is your affection, that I look with confidence to its 
unabated ardour at twenty. 

LEONTION. 

then I am to love Ternissa almost fifteen months ! 



232 EPICURUS, LEONTIOX, AND TERN1SSA. 

TERNISSA. 

And I am destined to survive the loss of it three months 
above four years ! 

EPICURUS. 

Incomparable creatures ! may it be eternal ! In loving ye 
shall follow no example : ye shall step securely over the iron 
rule laid down for others by the Destinies, and you for ever be 
Leontion, and you Ternissa. 

LEONTION. 

Then indeed we should not want statues. 

TERNISSA. 

But men, who are vainer creatures, would be good for 
nothing without them : they must be flattered, even by the 
stones. 

EPICURUS. 

Very true. Neither the higher arts nor the civic virtues 
can flourish extensively without the statues of illustrious men. 
But gardens are not the places for them. Sparrows wooing 
on the general's truncheon (unless he be such a general as one 
of ours in the last war), and snails besliming the emblems of 
the poet, do not remind us worthily of their characters. 
Porticoes are their proper situations, and those the most 
frequented. Even there they may lose all honour and distinc- 
tion, whether from the thoughtlessness of magistrates or from 
the malignity of rivals. Our own city, the least exposed of 
any to the effects of either, presents us a disheartening 
example. TThen the Thebans in their jealousy condemned 
Pindar to the payment of a fine, for having praised the 
Athenians too highly, our citizens erected a statue of bronze 
to him. 

LEONTION. 

Jealousy of Athens made the Thebans fine him; and 
jealousy of Thebes made the Athenians thus record it. 

EPICURUS. 

And jealousy of Pindar, I suspect, made some poet persuade 
the arcons to render the distinction a vile and worthless one, 
by placing his effigy near a king's, one Evagoras of Cyprus. 

TERNISSA. 

Evagoras, I think I remember to have read in the inscrip- 
tion, was rewarded in this manner for his reception of Conon, 
defeated by the Lacedemonians. 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 233 

EPICURUS. 

Gratitude was due to him, and some such memorial to 
record it. External reverence should be paid unsparingly to 
the higher magistrates of every country who perform their 
offices exemplarily : yet they are not on this account to be 
placed in the same degree with men of primary genius. They 
never exalt the human race, and rarely benefit it ; and their 
benefits are local and transitory, while those of a great writer 
are universal and eternal. 

If the gods did indeed bestow on us a portion of their fire, 
they seem to have lighted it in sport and left it : the harder 
task and the nobler is performed by that genius who raises it 
clear and glowing from its embers, and makes it applicable to 
the purposes that dignify or delight our nature. I have ever 
said, " Reverence the rulers." Let then his image stand ; but 
stand apart from Pindar's. Pallas and Jove ! defend me from 
being carried down the stream of time among a shoal of 
royalets, and the rootless weeds they are hatched on. 

TERNISSA. 

So much piety would deserve the exemption, even though 
your writings did not hold out the decree. 

LEONTION. 

Child, the compliment is ill turned : if you are ironical, as 
you, must be on the piety of Epicurus, Atticism requires that 
you should continue to be so, at least to the end of the 
sentence. 

TERNISSA. 

Irony is my abhorrence. Epicurus may appear less pious 
than some others ; but I am certain he is more ; otherwise the 
gods would never have given him . . . 

LEONTION. 

What ? what ? let us hear ! 

TERNISSA. 

Leontion ! 

LEONTION. 

Silly girl ! Were there any hibiscus or broom growing 
near at hand, I would send him away and whip -you. 

EPICURUS. 

There is fern, which is better. 



234 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERN1SSA. 

LEONTION. 

I was not speaking to you : but now you shall have some- 
thing to answer for yourself. Although you admit no statues 
in the country, you might at least methinks have discovered a 
retirement with a fountain in it : here I see not even a spring. 

EPICURUS. 

fountain I can hardly say there is ; but on the left there is 
a long crevice or chasm, which we have never yet visited, and 
which we can not discern until we reach it. This is full of 
soft mould, very moist; and many high reeds and canes are 
growing there ; and the rock itself too drips with humidity 
along it, and is covered with more tufted moss and more 
variegated lichens. This crevice, with its windings and sinu- 
osities, is about four hundred paces long, and in many parts 
eleven, twelve, thirteen feet wide, but generally six or seven. 
I shall plant it wholly with lilies of the valley ; leaving the 
irises which occupy the sides as well as the clefts, and also 
those other flowers of paler purple, from the autumnal cups of 
which we collect the saffron ; and forming a narrow path of 
such turf as I can find there, or rather following it as it creeps 
among the bays and hazels and sweet-briar, which have fallen 
at different times from the summit, and are now grown old, 
with an infinity of primroses at the roots. There are nowhere 
twenty steps without a projection and a turn, nor in any ten 
together is the chasm of the same width or figure. Hence 
the ascent in its windings is easy and imperceptible quite to 
the termination, where the rocks are somewhat high and 
precipitous : at the entrance they lose themselves in privet and 
elder, and you must make your way between them through 
the canes. Do not you remember where I carried you both 
across the muddy hollow in the foot-path ? 

TERNISSA. 

Leontion does. 

EPICURUS. 

That place is always wet; not only in this month of 
Puanepsion,* which we are beginning to-day, but in mid- 
summer. The water that causes it, comes out a little way 
above it, but originates from the crevice, which I will cover 

* The Attic month, of Puanepsion had its commencement in the latter 
days of October : its name is derived from irvava, the legumes which were 
offered in sacrifice to Apollo at that season. 



EPICURUS; LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 235 

at top with rose-laurel and mountain-ash, with clematis and 
vine ; and I will intercept the little rill in its wandering, draw 
it from its concealment, and place it like Bacchus under the 
protection of the Nymphs, who will smile upon it in its 
marble cradle, which at present I keep at home. 

TERNISSA. 

Leontion ! why do you turn away your face ? have the 
Nymphs smiled upon you in it ? 

LEONTION. 

I bathed in it once, if you must know, Ternissa ! Why 
now, Ternissa, why do you turn away yours ? have the 
Nymphs frowned upon you for invading their secrets ? 

TERNISSA. 

Epicurus, you are in the right to bring it away from 
Athens ; from under the eye of Pallas : she might be angry. 



You approve of its removal then, my lovely friend ? 

TERNISSA. 

Mightily. 

(Aside.) I wish it may break in pieces on the road. 

EPICURUS. 

"What did you say ? 

TERNISSA. 

I wish it were now on the road . . that I might try 
whether it would hold me . . I mean with my clothes on. 

EPICURUS. 

It would hold you, and one a span longer. I have another 
in the house ; but it is not decorated with Fauns and Satyrs 
and foliage, Like this. 

LEONTION. 

I remember putting my hand upon the frightful Satyr's 
head, to leap in : it seems made for the purpose. But the 
sculptor needed not to place the Naiad quite so near : he 
must have been a very impudent man : it is impossible to look 
for a moment at such a piece of workmanship. 

TERNISSA. 

Tor shame ! Leontion ! . . why, what was it ? I do not 
desire to know. 



236 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

EPICURUS. 

I don't remember it. 

LEONTION. 

Nor I neither ; only the head. 

EPICURUS. 

I shall place the Satyr toward the rock, that you may never 
see him, Ternissa. 

TERNISSA. 

Very right ; he can not turn round. 

LEONTION. 

The poor Naiad had done it, in vain. 

TERNISSA. 

All these laborers will soon finish the plantation, if you 
superintend them, and are not appointed to some magistrature. 

EPICURUS. 

Those who govern us are pleased at seeing a philosopher out 
of the city, and more stil at finding, in a season of scarcity, 
forty poor citizens, who might become seditious, made happy 
and quiet by such employment. 

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of 
erudition : never to be listened to, and to be listened to 
always. Aware of these, I devote a large portion of my time 
and labours to the cultivation of such minds as flourish best 
in cities, where my garden at the gate, although smaller than 
this, we find sufficiently capacious. There I secure my list- 
eners : here my thoughts and imaginations have their free 
natural current, and tarry or wander as the will invites : may 
it ever be among those dearest to me ! those whose hearts 
possess the rarest and divinest faculty, of retaining or forget- 
ting at option what ought to be forgotten or retained. 

LEONTION. 

The whole ground then will be covered with trees and 
shrubs ? 

EPICURUS. 

There are some protuberances in various parts of the emi- 
nence, which you do not perceive til you are upon them or 
above them. They are almost level at the top, and overgrown 
with fine grass; for they catch the better soil, brought 
down in small quantities by the rains. These are to be left 
unplanted; so is the platform under the pinasters, whence 



EPJCURUS, LE0NT10N, AND TERNISSA. ' 237 

there is a prospect of the city, the harbour, the ile of 
Salamis, and the territory of Megara. u What then/' cried 
Sosimenes, "you would hide from your. view my young olives, 
and the whole length of the new wall I have been building at 
my own expense between us ! and, when you might see at 
once the whole of Attica, you will hardly see more of it than 
I could buy." 

LEONTION. 

I do not perceive the new wall, for which Sosimenes, no 
doubt, thinks himself another Pericles. 

EPICURUS. 

Those old junipers quite conceal it. 

TERNISSA. 

They look warm and sheltering : but I like the rose-laurels 
much better ; and what a thicket of them here is ! 

EPICURUS. 

Leaving all the larger, I shall remove many thousands of 
them • enough to border the greater part of the walk, inter- 
mixed with roses. 

TERNISSA. 

Do, pray, leave that taller plant yonder, of which I see 
there are several springing in several places out of .the rock : it 
appears to have produced on a single stem a long succession 
of yellow flowers ; some darkening and fading, others running 
up and leaving them behind, others showing their little faces 
imperfectly through their light green veils. 

LEONTION. 

Childish girl ! she means the mullen ; and she talks about 
it as she would have talked about a doll, attributing to it 
feelings and aims and designs. I saw her stay behind to kiss 
it ; no doubt, for being so nearly of her own highth. 

TERNISSA. 

No indeed, not for that ; but because I had broken off one 
of its blossoms unheedingly, perhaps the last it may bear, and 
because its leaves are so downy and pliant; and because 
nearer the earth some droop and are decaying, and remind me 
of a parent who must die before the tenderest of her children 
can do without her. 

EPICURUS. 

I will preserve the whole species ; but you must point out 



238 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERMSSA. 

to me the particular one as we return. There is an infinity of 
other plants and flowers, or weeds as Sosimenes calls them, of 
which he has cleared his olive-yard, and which I shall adopt. 
Twenty of his slaves came in. yesterday, laden with hyacinths 
and narcissuses, anemones and jonquils. " The curses of our 
vineyards/' cried he, " and good neither for man nor beast. 
I have another estate infested with lilies of the valley : 
I should not wonder if you accepted these too/' 

" And with thanks/' answered I. 

The whole of his remark I could not collect : he turned aside, 
and (I believe) prayed. I only heard " Pallas" . . . " father " 
. . . " sound mind " . . . " inoffensive man " . . . " good neigh- 
bour." As we walked together I perceived him looking grave, 
and I could not resist my inclination to smile as I turned my 
eyes toward him. He observed it, at first with unconcern, 
but by degrees some doubts arose within him, and he said, 
" Epicurus, you have been throwing away no less than half a 
talent on this sorry piece of mountain, and I fear you are about 
to waste as much in labour : for nothing was ever so terrible 
as the price we are obliged to pay the workman, since the 
conquest of Persia, and the increase of luxury in our city. 
Under three obols none will do his day's work. But what, in 
the name of all the deities, could induce you to plant those 
roots, which other people dig up and throw away ?" 

" I have been doing," said I, " the same thing my whole life 
through, Sosimenes ! " 

" How ! " cried he : " I never knew that." 

" Those very doctrines," added I, " which others hate and 
extirpate, I inculcate and cherish. They bring no riches, and 
therefor are thought to bring no advantage : to me they appear 
the more advantageous for that reason. They give us imme- 
diately what we solicit through the means of wealth. We toil 
for the wealth first ; and then it remains to be proved whether 
we can purchase with it what we look for. Now, to carry our 
money to the market, and not to find in the market our 
money's worth, is great vexation : yet much greater has already 
preceded, in running up and down for it among so many 
competitors, and through so many thieves." 

After a while he rejoined, "You really then have not over- 
reached me ? " 

" In what ? my friend ! " said I. 

" These roots," he answered, " may perhaps be good and 



EPICURUS, LEOXTION, AND TEJINISSA. 239 

saleable for some purpose. Shall you send thern into Persia ? 
or whither ? w 

" Sosimenes ! I shall make love-potions of the flowers." 

LEONTION. 

Epicurus ! should it ever be known in Athens that they 
are good for this, you will not have, with all your fences of 
prunes and pomegranates, and precipices with briar upon 
them, a single root left under ground after the month of 
Elaphebolion.* 

EPICURUS. 

It is not everyone that knows the preparation. 

LEONTION. 

Everybody will try it. 

EPICURUS. 

And you too, Ternissa ? 

TERXISSA. 

Will you teach me ? 

EPICURUS. 

This, and anything else I know. We must walk together 
when they are in flower, 

TERNISSA. 

And can you teach me then ? 



I teach by degrees. 



EPICURUS. 
LEONTION. 



By very slow ones, Epicurus ! I have no patience with you : 
tell us directly. 

EPICURUS. 

It is very material what kind of recipient you bring with 
you. Enchantresses use a brazen one : silver and gold are 
employed in other arts. 

LEONTION. 

I will bring any. 

TERNISSA. 

My mother has a fine golden one : she will lend it me : she 
allows me everything. 

EPICURUS. 

Leontion and Ternissa ! those eyes of yours brighten at 
inquiry, as if they carried a light within them for a guidance. 

* The thirtieth, of Elaphebolion was the tenth of April. 



240 EPICUR¥S, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

LEONTION. 

No flattery ! 

TERNISSA. 

No flattery ! come, teach us. 

EPICURUS. 

Will you liear me through in silence ? 

LEONTION. 

"We promise. 

EPICURUS. 

Sweet girls ! the calm pleasures, such as I hope you will 
ever find in your walks among these gardens, will improve 
your beauty, animate your discourse, and correct the little that 
may hereafter rise up for correction in your dispositions. The 
smiling ideas left in our bosoms from our infancy, that many 
plants are the favorites of the gods, and that others were even 
the objects of their love, having once been invested with the 
human form, beautiful and lively and happy as yourselves, give 
them an interest beyond the vision; yes, and a station, let me 
say it, on the vestibule of our affections. Resign your ingenu- 
ous hearts to simple pleasures ; and there is none in man where 
men are Attic that will not follow and outstrip their move- 
ments. 

TERNISSA. 

Epicurus ! 

EPICURUS. 

What said Ternissa ? 

LEONTION. 

Some of those anemones, I do think, must be stil in 
blossom. Ternissa' s golden cup is at home; but she has 
brought with her a little vase for the filter . . . and has filled 
it to the brim ... Do not hide your head behind my 
shoulder, Ternissa ! no, nor in my lap. 

EPICURUS. 

Yes, there let it lie, the lovelier for that tendril of sunny 
brown hair upon it. How it falls and rises ! Which is the 
hair ? which the shadow ? 

LEONTION. 

Let the hair rest. 

EPICURUS. 

1 must not perhaps clasp the shadow ! 



EPICURUS, LEONTIONj AND TEENISSA. 241 

LEONTION. 

You pliilosopliers are fond of such unsubstantial things. 
! you have taken my volume. This is deceit. 

You live so little in public, and entertain such a contempt 
for opinion, as to be both indifferent and ignorant what it is 
that people blame you for. 

EPICURUS. 

I know what it is I should blame myself for, if I attended 
to them. Prove them to be wiser and more disinterested in 
their wisdom than I am, and I will then go down to them and 
listen to them. When I have well considered a thing, I deliver 
it, regardless of what those think who neither take the time 
nor possess the faculty of considering anything well, and 
who have always lived far remote from the scope of our 
speculations. 

LEONTION. 

In the volume you snatched away from me so slily, I have 
defended a position of yours which many philosophers turn 
into ridicule; namely, that politeness is among the virtues. I 
wish you yourself had spoken more at large upon the subject. 

EPICURUS. 

It is one upon which a lady is likely to display more 
ingenuity and discernment. If philosophers have ridiculed 
my sentiment, the reason is, it is among those virtues which, in 
general they find most difficult to assume or counterfeit. 

LEONTION. 

Surely life runs on the smoother for this equability and 
polish; and the gratification it affords is more extensive than 
is afforded even by the highest virtue. Courage, on nearly all 
occasions, inflicts as much of evil as it imparts of good. It 
may be exerted in defence of our country, in defence of those 
who love us, in defence of the harmless and the helpless : but 
those against whom it is thus exerted may possess an equal 
share of it. If they succeed, then manifestly the ill it produces 
is greater than the benefit : if they succumb, it is nearly as 
great. For, many of their adversaries are first killed and 
maimed, and many of their own kindred are left to lament the 
consequences of the aggression. 

EPICURUS. 

Y r ou have spoken first of courage, as that virtue which 
attracts your sex principally. 



242 EPICURUS, LEOimON, AND TERNISSA. 

TERNISSA. 

Not me ; I am always afraid of it. I love those best who 
can tell me the most things I never knew before, and who 
have patience with me, and look kindly while they teach me, 
and almost as if they were waiting for fresh questions. Now 
let me hear directly what you were about to say to Leontion. 

EPICURUS. 

I was proceeding to remark that temperance comes next ; 
and temperance has then its highest merit when it is the 
support of civility and politeness. So that I think I am right 
and equitable in attributing to politeness a distinguished rank, 
not among the ornaments of life, but among the virtues. And 
you, Leontion and Ternissa, will have leaned the more pro- 
pensely toward this opinion, if you considered, as I am sure 
you did, that the peace and concord of families, friends, and 
cities, are preserved by it : in other terms, the harmony of the 
world. 

TERNISSA, 

Leontion spoke of courage, you of temperance : the next 
great virtue, in the division made by the philosophers, is 
justice. 

EPICURUS. 

Temperance includes it : for temperance is imperfect if it is 
only an abstinence from too much food, too much wine, too 
much conviviality, or other luxury. It indicates every kind of 
forbearance. Justice is forbearance from what belongs to 
another. Giving to this one rightly what that one would hold 
wrongfully, is justice in magistrature, not in the abstract, and 
is only a part of its office. The perfectly temperate man is 
also the perfectly just man : but the perfectly just man (as 
philosophers now define him) may not be the perfectly tem- 
perate one : I include the less in the greater. 

LEONTION. 

We hear of judges, and upright ones too, being immoderate 
eaters and drinkers. 

EPICURUS. 

The Lacedemonians are temperate in food and courageous in 
battle : but men like these, if they existed in sufficient numbers, 
would devastate the universe. We alone, we Athenians, with 
less military skill perhaps, and certainly less rigid abstinence 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 213 

from voluptuousness and luxury, have set before it the only 
grand example of social government and of polished life. 
From us the seed is scattered : from us flow the streams that 
irrigate it : and ours are the hands, O Leontion, that collect 
it, cleanse it, deposit it, and convey and distribute it sound and 
weighty through every race and age. Exhausted as we are by 
war, we can do nothing better than lie down and doze while 
the weather is fine overhead, and dream (if we can) that we 
are affluent and free, 

sweet sea-air ! how bland art thou and refreshing ! Breathe 
upon Leontion ! breathe upon Ternissa ! bring them health and 
spirits and serenity, many springs and many summers, and 
when the vine-leaves have reddened and rustle under their 
feet. 

These, my beloved girls, are the children of Eternity : they 
played around Theseus and the beauteous Amazon, they gave to 
Pallas the bloom of Yenus, and to Yenus the animation of 
Pallas. Is it not better to enjoy by the hour their soft salu- 
brious influence, than to catch by fits the rancid breath of 
demagogues; than to swell and move under it without or 
against our will; than to acquire the semblance of eloquence 
by the bitterness of passion, the tone of philosophy by disap- 
pointment, or the credit of prudence by distrust ? Can fortune, 
can industry, can desert itself, bestow on us any tiling we have 
not here ? 

LEONTION. 

And when shall those three meet? The gods have never 
united them, knowing that men would put them asunder at 
their first appearance. 

EPICURUS. 

1 am glad to leave the city as often as possible, full as it is 
of high and glorious reminiscences, and am inclined much 
rather to indulge- in quieter scenes, whither the Graces and 
Friendship lead me. I would not contend even with men able 
to contend with me. You, Leontion, I see, think differently, 
and have composed at last your long-meditated work against 
the philosophy of Theophrastus. 

LEONTION. 

Why not ? he has been praised above his merits. 

EPICURUS. 

My Leontion! you have inadvertently given me the reason 

B 2 



244 EPICURUS,, LEONTIOX, AND TEENISSA. 

and origin of all controversial writings. They flow not from a 
love of truth or a regard for science, but from envy and ill-will. 
Setting aside the evil of malignity, always hurtful to ourselves, 
not always to others, there is weakness in the argument you 
have adduced. When a writer is praised above his merits in 
his own times, he is certain of being estimated below them in 
the times succeeding. Paradox is dear to most people : it 
bears the appearance of originality, but is usually the talent 
of the superficial, the perverse, and the obstinate. 

Nothing is more gratifying than the attention you are 
bestowing on me, which you always apportion to the serious- 
ness of my observations. But, Leontion ! Leontion !' you 
defend me too earnestly. The roses on your cheeks should 
derive their bloom from a cooler and sweeter and more salu- 
brious fountain. In what mythology (can you tell me, 
Ternissa ?) is Friendship the mother of Anger ? 

TERNISSA. 

I can only tell you that Love lights Anger's torch very 
often. 

LEONTION. 

I dislike Theophrastus for his affected contempt of your 

doctrines. 

EPICUKUS. 

Unreasonably, for the contempt of them; reasonably, if 
affected. Good men may differ widely from me, and wise 
ones misunderstand me ; for, their wisdom having raised up 
to them schools of their own, they have not found leisure to 
converse with me; and from others they have received a 
partial and inexact report. My opinion is, that certain things 
are indifferent, and unworthy of pursuit or attention, as 
lying beyond our research and almost our conjecture ; which 
things the generality of philosophers (for the generality are 
speculative) deem of the first importance. Questions relating 
to them I answer evasively, or altogether decline. Again, 
there are modes of living which are suitable to some and 
unsuitable to others. What I myself follow and embrace, 
what I recommend to the studious, to the irritable, to the 
weak in health, would ill agree with the commonality of 
citizens. Yet my adversaries cry out, " Such is the opinion 
and practice of Epicurus." Eor instance, I have never taken 
a wife, and never will take one : but he from among the mass 



EPICURUS, LEONTION", AND TERNISSA. 245 

who should avow his imitation of my example, would act as 
wisely and more religiously in saying that he chose celibacy 
because Pallas had clone the same. 

LEONTION. 

If Pallas had many such votaries she would soon have few 
citizens to supply them. 

EPICURUS. 

And extremely bad ones if all followed me in retiring from 
the offices of magistracy and of war. Having seen that the 
most sensible men are the most unhappy, I could not but 
examine the causes of it : and finding that the same sensi- 
bility to which they are indebted for the activity of their 
intellect^ is also the restless mover of their jealousy and 
ambition, I would lead them aside from whatever operates 
upon these, and throw under their feet the terrors their ima- 
gination has created. My philosophy is not for the populace 
nor for the proud : the ferocious will never attain it : the 
gentle will embrace it, but will not call it mine. I do not 
desire that they should : let them rest their heads upon that 
part of the pillow which they find the softest, and enjoy their 
own dreams unbroken. 

LEONTION. 

The old are all against you : for the name of pleasure is an 
affront to them : they know no other kind of it than that 
which has flowered and seeded, and of which the withered 
stems have indeed a rueful look. TThat we call dry they call 
sound : nothing must retain any juice in it : their pleasure is 
in chewing what is hard, not in tasting what is savoury. 



Unhappily the aged are retentive of long-acquired maxims, 
and insensible to new impressions, whether from fancy or from 
truth : in fact, their eves blend the two together. Well might 
the poet tell us, 

Fewer the gifts that gnarled Age presents 

To elegantly-handed Infancy. 

Than elegantly-handed Infancy 

Presents to gnarled Age, From both they drop : 

The middle course of life receives them all, 

Save the light few that laughing Youth runs off with, 

Unvalued as a mistress or a flower. 



246 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

LEONTION. 

It is reported by the experienced that our last loves and 
our first are of equal interest to us. 

TERNISSA. 

Surely they are. What is the difference ? Can you really 
mean to say, Leontion, that there are any intermediate ? 
Why do you look aside ? And you too refuse to answer me 
so easy and plain a question ? 

LEONTION (to EPICURUS). 

Although you teach us the necessity of laying a strong 
hand on the strong affections, you never pull one feather from 
the wing of Love. 

EPICURUS. 

I am not so irreligious. 

TERNISSA. 

I think he could only twitch it just enough to make the 
gentle god turn round, and smile on him. 

LEONTION. 

You know little about the matter, but may live to know all. 
Whatever we may talk of torments, as some do, there must 
surely be more pleasure in desiring and not possessing, than 
in possessing and not desiring. 

EPICURUS. 

Perhaps so : but consult the intelligent. Certainly there is 
a middle state between love and friendship, more delightful 
than either, but more difficult to remain in. 

LEONTION. 

To be preferred to all others is the supremacy of bliss. Do 
not you think so, Ternissa ? 

TERNISSA. 

It is indeed what the wise and the powerful and the beau- 
tiful chiefly aim at : Leontion has attained it. 

EPICURUS. 

Delightful, no doubt, is such supremacy: but far more 
delightful is the certainty that there never was anyone quite 
near enough to be given up for us. To be preferred is hardly 
a compensation for having been long compared. The breath 
of another's sigh bedims and hangs pertinaciously about the 
image we adore. 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 247 

LEONTION. 

AVlien Friendship has taken the place of Love, she ought 
to make his absence as little a cause of regret as possible, and 
it is gracious in her to imitate his demeanour and his words. 

EPICURUS. 

I can repeat them more easily than imitate them. 

TERNISSA. 

Both of you, until this moment, were looking grave ; but 
Leontion has resumed her smiles again on hearing what 
Epicurus can do. I wish you would repeat to me, Epicurus, 
any words so benign a God hath vouchsafed to teach you ; for 
it would be a convincing proof of your piety, and i could 
silence the noisiest tongue in Athens with it. 

LEONTION. 

Simpleton ! we were speaking allegorically. 

TERNISSA. 

Never say that : I do believe the God himself hath con- 
versed with Epicurus. Tell me now, Epicurus, tell me your- 
self, has not he ? 

EPICURUS. 

Yes. 

TERNISSA. 

In his own form ? 

EPICURUS. 

Very nearly : it was in Ternissa's. 

TERNISSA. 

Impious man ! I am ashamed of you. 

LEONTION. 

Never did shame burn brighter. 

TERNISSA. 

Mind Theophrastus, not me. 

LEONTION. 

Since, in obedience to your institutions, Epicurus, I must 
not say I am angry, I am offended at least with Theophrastus, 
for having so misrepresented your opinions, on the necessity of 
keeping the mind composed and tranquil, and remote from 
every object and every sentiment by which a painful sympathy 
may be excited. In order to display his elegance of language, 



248 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

lie runs wherever he can lay a censure on you, whether he 
believes in its equity or not. 

EPICURUS. 

This is the case with all eloquent men and all disputants. 
Truth neither warms nor elevates them, neither obtains for 
them profit nor applause. 

TERNISSA. 

I have heard wise remarks very often and very warmly 
praised. 

EPICURUS. 

Not for the truth in them, but for the grace, or because 
they touched the spring of some preconception or some 
passion. Man is a hater of truth, a lover of fiction. 

LEONTION. 

How then happens it that children, when you have related 
to them any story which has greatly interested them, ask 
immediately and impatiently, is it true ? 

EPICURUS. 

Children are not men nor women : they are almost as 
different creatures, in many respects, as if they never were to 
be the one or the other : they are as unlike as buds are unlike 
flowers, and almost as blossoms are unlike fruits. Greatly are 
they better than they are about to be, unless Philosophy raises 
her hand above them when the noon is coming on, and shelters 
them at one season from the heats that would scorch and 
wither, and at another from the storms that would shatter and 
subvert them. There are nations, it is reported, which aim 
their arrows and javelins at the sun and moon, on occasions of 
eclipse, or any other offence : but I never have heard that the 
sun and moon abated their course through the heavens for it, 
or looked more angrily when they issued forth again to shed 
light on their antagonists. They went onward all the while in 
their own serenity and clearness, through unobstructed paths, 
without diminution and without delay : it was only the little 
world below that was in darkness. Philosophy lets her light 
descend and enter wherever there is a passage for it : she 
takes advantage of the smallest crevice, but the rays are 
rebutted by the smallest obstruction. Polemics can never be 
philosophers or philotheists : they serve men ill, and their gods 
no better : they mar what is solid in earthly bliss by animo- 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 249 

sities and dissensions, and intercept the span of azure at which 
the weary and the sorrowful would look up. 

Theophrastus is a writer of many acquirements and some 
shrewdness, usually judicious, often somewhat witty, always 
elegant : his thoughts are never confused, his sentences are 
never incomprehensible. If Aristoteles thought more highly 
of him than his due, surely you ought not to censure Theo- 
phrastus with severity on the supposition of his rating me 
below mine ; unless you argue that a slight error in a short 
sum is less pardonable than in a longer. Had Aristoteles 
been living, and had he given the same opinion of me, your 
friendship and perhaps my self-love might have been wounded ; 
for, if on one occasion he spoke too favorably, he never 
spoke unfavorably but with justice. This is among the 
indications of orderly and elevated minds ; and here stands 
the barrier that separates them from the common and the 
waste. Is a man to be angry because an infant is fretful ? 
Is a philosopher to unpack and throw away his philosophy, 
because an idiot has tried to overturn it on the road, and has 
pursued it with jibes and ribaldry ? 

LEOXTIOX. 

Theophrastus would persuade us that, according to your 
system, we not only should decline the succour of the wretched, 
but avoid the sympathies that poets and historians would 
awaken in us. Probably for the sake of introducing some 
idle verses, written by a friend of his, he says that, following 
the guidance of Epicurus, we should altogether shun the 
theater, and not only when Prometheus and (Edipus and 
P/iilocteles are introduced, but even where generous and 
kindly sentiments are predominant, if they partake of that 
tenderness which belongs to pity. I know not what Thracian 
lord recovers his daughter from her ravisher : such are among 
the words they exchange. 

Father. Insects, that dwell in rotten reeds, inert 
Upon the surface of a stream or pool, 
Then rush into the air on meshy vans, 
Are not so different in their varying lives 
As we are . . ! what father on this earth, 
Holding his child's cool cheek within his palms 
And kissing his fair front, would wish him man ] 
Inheritor of wants and j ealousies, 
Of labor, of ambition, of distress, 



250 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

And, crudest of all the passions, lust. 

"Who that beholds me, persecuted, scorned, 

A wanderer, e'er could think what friends were mine, 

How numerous, how devoted ? with what glee 

Smiled my old house, with what acclaim my courts 

Rang from without whene'er my war-horse neighed. 

Daughter. Thy fortieth birthday is not shouted yet 
By the young peasantry, with rural gifts 
And nightly fires along the pointed hills, 
Yet do thy temples glitter with grey hair 
Scattered not thinly : ah what sudden change ! 
Only thy voice and heart remain the same : 
No, that voice trembles, and that heart (I feel) 
While it would comfort and console me, breaks. 



I would never close my bosom against the feelings of 
humanity : but I would calmly and well consider by what 
conduct of life they may enter it with the least importunity 
and violence. A consciousness that we have promoted the 
happiness of others, to the uttermost of our power, is certain 
not only to meet them at the threshold, but to bring them 
along with us, and to render them accurate and faithful 
prompters, when we bend perplexedly over the problem of 
evil figured by the tragedians. If indeed there were more of 
pain than of pleasure in the exhibitions of the dramatist, no 
man in his senses would attend them twice. All the imitative 
arts have delight for the principal object : the first of these is 
poetry : the highest of poetry is tragic. 

LEONTION. 

The epic has been called so. 

EPICURUS. 

Improperly • for the epic has much more in it of what is 
prosaic. Its magnitude is no argument. An Egyptian pyramid 
contains more materials than an Ionic temple, but requires less 
contrivance, and exhibits less beauty of design. My simily is 
yet a defective one • for, a tragedy must be carried on with an 
unbroken interest ; and, undecorated by loose foliage or fan- 
tastic branches, it must rise, like the palm-tree, with a lofty 
unity. On these matters I am unable to argue at large, or 
perhaps correctly : on those however which I have studied and 
treated, my terms are so explicit and clear, that Theophrastus 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 251 

can never have misunderstood tliem. Let me recall to your 
attention but two axioms. 

Abstinence from low pleasures is the only means of meriting 
or of obtaining the higher. 

Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of 
unkindness in another. 

LEONTION. 

Explain to me then, O Epicurus, why we suffer so much 
from ingratitude. 

EPICURUS. 

We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we 
suffer from self-love. Passion w r eeps while she says, " I did 
not deserve this from him:" Reason, while she says it, 
smoothens her brow at the clear fountain of the heart. Permit 
me also, like Theophrastus, to borrow a few words from a poet. 

TERNISSA. 

Borrow as many such as anyone will entrust to you : and 
may Hermes prosper your commerce ! Leontion may go to the 
theater then ; for she loves it. 

EPICURUS. 

Girls ! be the bosom friends of Antigone and Ismene ; and 
you shall enter the wood of the Eumenides without shuddering, 
and leave it without the trace of a tear. Never did you appear 
so graceful to me, Ternissa ; no, not even after this walk do 
you ; as when I saw you blow a fly from the forehead of 
Philoctetes in the propylea. The wing, with which Sophocles 
and the statuary represent him, to drive away the summer 
insects in his agony, had wearied his flaccid arm, hanging down 
beside him. 

TERNISSA. 

Do you imagine then I thought him a living man ? 

EPICURUS. 

The sentiment was both more delicate and more august from 
being indistinct. You would have done it, even if he had 
been a living man : even if he could have clasped you in his 
arms, imploring the Deities to resemble you in gentleness, you 
would have done it. 

TERNISSA. 

He looked so abandoned by all, and so heroic, yet so feeble 
and so helpless ; I did not think of turning round to see if 
anyone was near me ; or else perhaps . . . 



252 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 



If you could have thought of looking round, you would no 
longer have been Ternissa. The gods Avould have transformed 
you for it into some tree. 

LEONTION. 

And Epicurus had been walking under it this day perhaps. 

EPICURUS. 

"With Leontion, the partner of his sentiments. But the 
walk would have been earlier or later than the present hour : 
since the middle of the day, like the middle of certain fruits, is 
good for nothing. 

LEONTION. 

Tor dinner surely. 

EPICURUS. 

Dinner is a less gratification to me than to many : I dine 
alone. 

TERNISSA. 

Why? 

EPICURUS. 

To avoid the noise, the heat, and the intermixture both of 
odours and of occupations. I can not bear the indecency of 
speaking with a mouth in which there is food. I careen my 
body (since it is always in want of repair) in as unobstructed a 
space as I can, and I lie down and sleep awhile when the work- 
is over. 

LEONTION. 

Epicurus ! although it would be very interesting, no doubt, 
to hear more of what you do after dinner . . . {aside to him) 
now don't smile : I shall never forgive you if you say a single 
word . . . yet I would rather hear a little about the theater, 
and whether you think at last that women should frequent it ; 
for you have often said the contrary. 

EPICURUS. 

I think they should visit it rarely ; not because it excites 
their affections, but because it deadens them. To me nothing 
is so odious as to be at once among the rabble and among the 
heroes, and, while I am receiving into my heart the most 
exquisite of human sensations, to feel upon my shoulder the 
hand of some inattentive and insensible young officer. 

LEONTION. 

very bad indeed ! horrible ! 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 253 

TERNIS3A. 

You quite fire at the idea. 

LEONTION". 

Not I : I don't care about it. 

TERNISSA. 

Not about what is very bad indeed ? quite horrible ? 

LEONTION. 

I seldom go thither. 

EPICURUS. 

The theater is delightful when we erect it in our own house 
or arbour, and when there is but one spectator. 

LEOXTION. 

You must lose the illusion in great part, if you only read 
the tragedy, which I fancy to be your meaning. 

EPICURUS. 

I lose the less of it. Do not imagine that the illusion is, 
or can be, or ought to be, complete. If it were possible, no 
Phalaris or Perillus could devise a crueller torture. Here are 
two imitations : first, the poet's of the sufferer ; secondly, the 
actor's of both : poetry is superinduced. No man in pain 
ever uttered the better part of the language used by Sophocles. 
"We admit it, and willingly, and are at least as much illuded by 
it as by anything else we hear or see upon the stage. Poets 
and statuaries and painters give us an adorned imitation of the 
object, so skilfully treated that we receive it for a correct one. 
This is the only illusion they aim at : this is the perfection of 
their arts. 

LEOXTION. 

Do you derive no pleasure from the representation of a 
consummate actor ? 

EPICURUS. 

High pleasure ; but liable to be overturned in an instant ; 
pleasure at the mercy of anyone who sits beside me. Earelv 
does it happen that an Athenian utters a syllable in the midst 
of it : but our city is open to the inhabitants of all the world, 
and all the world that is yet humanised a woman might walk 
across in sixty hours. There are even in Greece a few remaining 
stil so barbarous, that I have heard them whisper in the midst 
of the finest scenes of our greatest poets. 

LEOXTIOX. 

Acorn-fed Chaonians ! 



254 EPICURUS, LEONHON, AND TERNISSA. 

EPICURUS. 

I esteem all the wise ; but I entertain no wish to imitate all 
of them in everything. What was convenient and befitting 
in one or other of them, might be inconvenient and unbefitting 
in me. Great names ought to bear us up and carry us through, 
but never to run away with us. Peculiarity and solitariness 
give an idea to weak minds of something grand, authoritative, 
and god-like. To be wise indeed and happy and self-possessed, 
we must often be alone : we must mix as little as we can with 
what is called society, and abstain rather more than seems 
desirable even from the better few. 

TERNISSA. 

You have commanded us at all times to ask you anything 
we do not understand : why then use the phrase " what is 
called society V* as if there could be a doubt whether we are 
in society when we converse with many. 

EPICURUS. 

We may meet and converse with thousands : you and 
Leontion and myself could associate with few. Society, in the 
philosophical sense of the word, is almost the contrary of what 
it is in the common acceptation. 

LEONTION. 

Now go on with your discourse. 

EPICURUS. 

When we have once acquired that intelligence of which we 
have been in pursuit, w T e may relax our minds, and lay the 
produce of our chase at the feet of those we love. 

LEONTION. 

Philosophers seem to imagine that they can be visible and 
invisible at will ; that they can be admired for the display of 
their tenets, and unobserved in the workings of their spleen. 
None of those whom I remember, or whose writings I have 
perused, was quite exempt from it. Among the least malicious 
is Theophrastus : could he find no other for so little malice but 
you? 

EPICURUS. 

The origin of his dislike to me, was my opinion that per- 
spicuity is the prime excellence of composition. He and 
Aristoteles and Plato talk diffusely of attending to harmony, 
and clap rhetorical rules before our mouths in order to produce 



EPICURUS, LE0NTI0N, AND TERN1SSA. 255 

it. Natural sequences and right subordination of thoughts, 
and that just proportion of numbers in the sentences which 
follows a strong conception, are the constituents of true har- 
mony. You are satisfied with it and dwell upon it ; which 
you would vainly hope to do when you are forced to turn back 
again to seize an idea or to comprehend a period. Let us 
believe that opposition, and even hard words, are (at least in 
the beginning) no certain proofs of hatred; although, by 
requiring defence, they soon produce heat and animosity in 
him who hath engaged in so unwise a warfare. On the other 
hand, praises are not always the unfailing signs of liberality or 
of justice. Many are extolled out of enmity to others, and 
perhaps would have been decried had those others not existed. 
Among the causes of my happiness, this is one : I never have 
been stimulated to hostility by any in the crowd that has 
assailed me. If in my youth I had been hurried into this 
weakness, I should have regretted it as lost time, lost pleasure, 
lost humanity. 

LEOXTION. 

We may expose what is violent or false in anyone; and 
chiefly in anyone who injures us or our friends. 

EPICURUS. 

"We may. 

LEONTION. 

How then ? 

EPICURUS. 

By exhibiting in ourselves the contrary. Such vengeance is 
legitimate and complete. I found in my early days, among the 
celebrated philosophers of Greece, a love of domination, a 
propensity to imposture, a jealousy of renown, and a cold 
indifference to simple truth. None of these qualities lead to 
happiness ; none of them stand within the precincts of Virtue. 
I asked myself, " What is the most natural and the most 
universal of our desires \" I found it was, to he happy. Won- 
derful I thought it, that the gratification of a desire which is 
at once the most universal and the most natural, should be the 
seldomest attained. I then conjectured the means; and I found 
that they vary, as vary the minds and capacities of men ; that, 
however, the principal one lay in the avoidance of those very 
things which had hitherto been taken up as the instruments of 
enjoyment and content; such as military commands, political 



256 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

offices, clients, hazardous ventures in commerce, and extensive 
property in land. 

LEONTION. 

And yet offices, both political and military, must be under- 
taken ■ and clients will throng about those who exercise them. 
Commerce too will dilate with Prosperity, and frugality will 
square her farm by lopping off the angles of the next; 

EPICURUS. 

True, Leontion ! nor is there a probability that my opinions 
will pervade the heart of Avarice or Ambition : they will 
influence only the unoccupied. Philosophy hath led scarcely a 
single man away from commands or magistracies, until he hath 
first tried them. Weariness is the repose of the politician, and 
apathy his wisdom. He fancies that nations are contemplating 
the great man in his retirement, while what began in ignorance 
of himself is ending in forgetfulness on the part of others. 
This truth at last appears to him : he detests the ingratitude 
of mankind : he declares his resolution to carry the earth no 
longer on his shoulders : he is taken at his word : and the 
shock of it breaks his heart. 

TERNISSA. 

Epicurus, I have been listening to you with even more 
pleasure than usual, for you often talk of love, and such other 
things as vou can know nothino* about : but now vou have 
gone out of your way to defend an enemy, and to lead aside 
Leontion from her severity toward Theophrastus. 

EPICURUS. 

Believe me, my lovely friends, he is no ordinary man who 
hath said one wise tiling gracefully in the whole of his 
existence : now several such are* recorded of him whom 
Leontion hath singled out from my assailants. His style 
is excellent. 

LEONTION. i 

The excellence of it hath been exaggerated by Aristoteles, 
to lower our opinion of Plato's. 

EPICURUS. 

It may be : I can not prove it, and never heard it. 

LEONTION. 

So blinded indeed is this great master of rhetoric . . . 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERN1SSA. 257 



Pardon the rudeness of my interruption, dear Leontion. 
Do not designate so great a man by a title so contemptible. 
You are nearly as humiliating to his genius as those who 
call him the Stagyrite : and those are ignorant of the wrong 
they do him : many of them are his disciples and admirers, 
and call him by that name in quoting his authority. Philo- 
sophy, until he came among us, was like the habitations of 
the Troglodytes; vast indeed and wonderful, but without 
construction, without arrangement : he first gave it order and 
system. I do not rank him with Democritus, who has been 
to philosophers what Homer has been to poets, and who is 
equally great in imagination and in reflection : but no other 
has left behind him so many just remarks on such a variety of 
subjects. 

Within one olympiad three men have departed from the 
world, who carried farther than any other three that ever 
dwelt upon it, reason, eloquence, and martial glory ; Aristoteles, 
Demosthenes, and Alexander. Now tell me which, of these 
qualities do you admire the most ? 

LEONTION. 

Season. 

EPICURUS. 

And rightly. Among the three characters, the vulgar and 
ignorant will prefer Alexander ; the less vulgar and ignorant 
will prefer Demosthenes ; and they who are removed to the 
greatest distance from ignorance and vulgarity, Aristoteles. 
Yet, although, he has written on some occasions with as much 
purity and precision as we find in the Orations of Pericles, 
many things are expressed obscurely ; which is by much the 
greatest fault in composition. 

LEONTION. 

Surely you do not say that an obscurity is worse than a 
defect in grammar. 

EPICURUS. 

I do say it : for we may discover a truth through, such, a 
defect, which, we can not through an obscurity. It is better to 
find the object of our researches in ill condition than not 
to find it at all. We may purify the idea in our own bath, 
and adorn it with our own habiliments, if we can but find it, 
though among the slaves or clowns : wheras, if it is locked 
up from us in a dark chamber at the top of the house, we have 



258 EPICURUS, LEOXTION, AND TERNISSA. 

only to walk down-stairs again, disappointed, tired, and out of 
humour. 

But you were saying that something had blinded the 
philosopher. 

LEONTION. 

His zeal and partiality. Not only did he prefer Theophrastus 
to everyone who taught at Athens ; not only did he change his 
original name, for one of so high an import as to signify that 
he would elevate his language to the language of the gods ; 
but he fancied and insisted that the very sound of Theophrastus 
is sweet,* of Tyrtamus harsh and inelegant. 

EPICURUS. 

Your ear, Leontion, is the better arbitress of musical sounds, 
in which (I speak of words) hardly any two agree. But a 
box on the ear does not improve the organ ; and I would 
advise you to leave inviolate and untouched all those peculi- 
arities which rest on friendship. The jealous, if we suffered 
them in the least to move us, would deserve our commiseration 
rather than our resentment : but the best thing we can do 
with them is to make them the comedians of our privacy. 
Some have recently started up among us, who, when they have 
published to the world their systems of philosophy, or their 
axioms, or their paradoxes, and find nevertheless that others 
are preferred to them, persuade their friends and scholars that 
enormous and horrible injustice hath been done toward them. 
By degrees they cool however, and become more reasonable : 
they resign the honour of invention, which always may be 
contested or ascertained, and invest themselves with what 
they style much greater, that of learning. What constitutes 
this glory, on which they plume themselves so joyously and 
gaudily ? Nothing else than the reading of those volumes 
which we have taken the trouble to write. A multitude of 
authors, the greater part of them inferior in abilities to you 
who hear me, are the slow constructors of reputations which 
they would persuade us are the solidest and the highest. We 
teach them all they know : and they are as proud as if they 
had taught us. There are not indeed many of these parasitical 
plants at present, sucking us, and resting their leafy slenderness 

* TvpTafios 5' e/caAe?TO itporspov 6 ©eocppaaros, jucrcouofiaa-e 5* avrov 6 'Apia- 
tot4Xt}S Qeocppacrrow a,ua ixev (pevycov ttjp rov irporepov ouofxaros KaKO(pcoviav, 
afia 5e rov rrjs (ppdaeoos avrov (rjAov 47no~7)fj.aiv6/j.€VOs. Strabo xiii. 



EPICURUS, LE0NT10N, AND TERNISSA. 259 

upon us : but whenever books become more numerous, a new- 
species will arise from them, to which philosophers and 
historians and poets must give way, for, intercepting all above, 
it will approximate much nearer to the manners and intellects 
of the people. At last what is most Attic in Athens will be 
canvassed and discussed in their booth; and he who now 
exerciseth a sound and strong judgment of his own, will 
indifferently borrow theirs, and become so corrupted with it, 
as ever afterward to be gratified to his heart's content by the 
impudent laconism of their oracular decisions. These people 
are the natural enemies of greater: they can not sell their 
platters of offal while a richer feast is open to the public, and 
while lamps of profuser light announce the invitation. I would 
not augur the decay of philosophy and literature : it was 
retarded by the good example of our ancestors. The seven 
wise men, as they are called, lived amicably, and, where it was 
possible, in intercourse. Our seventy wiser (for we may reckon 
at least that number of those who proclaim themselves so) 
stand at the distance of a porcupine's shot, and, like that 
animal, scatter their shafts in every direction, with more 
profusion than force, and with more anger than aim. 

Hither, to these banks of serpolet; to these strawberries, 
whose dying leaves breathe a most refreshing fragrance ; to 
this ivy, from which Bacchus may have crowned himself; let 
us retire at the voice of Discord. "Whom should we contend 
with ? the less ? it were inglorious : the greater ? it were 
vain. Do we look for Truth ? she is not the inhabitant of 
cities nor delights in clamour : she steals upon the calm and 
meditative as Diana upon Endymion, indulgent in her chastity, 
encouraging a modest, and requiting a faithful love. 



How Ternissa" sighs after Truth ! 

EPICURUS. 

If Truth appeared in daylight among mortals, she would 
surely resemble Ternissa. Those white and lucid cheeks, that 
youth which appears more youthful (for unless we are near 
her we think her yet a child), and that calm open forehead . . . 



Malicious girl ! she conceals it ! 

s 2 



260 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

EPICURUS. 

Ingenious girl ! the resemblance was, until now, imperfect. 
We must remove the veil ourselves ; for Truth, whatever the 
poets may tell us, never comes without one, diaphanous or 
opake. 

If those who differ on speculative points, would walk 
together now and then in the country, they might find many 
objects that must unite them. The same bodily feeling is 
productive in some degree of the same mental one. Enjoyment 
from sun and air, from exercise and odours, brings hearts 
together that schools and council-chambers and popular assem- 
blies have stood between for years. 

I hope Theophrastus may live, to walk with us among these 
bushes when they are shadier, and to perceive that all questions, 
but those about the way to happiness, are illiberal or mechanical 
or infantine or idle. 

TERNISSA. 

Are geometry and astronomy idle ? 

EPICURUS. 

Such idleness as theirs a wise man may indulge in, when he 
has found what he was seeking : and, as they abstract the 
mind from what would prey upon it, there are many to whom 
I would recommend them earlier, as their principal and most 
serious studies. 

We will return to Theophrastus. He has one great merit 
in style ; he is select and sparing in the use of metaphors : 
that man sees badly who sees everything double. He wants 
novelty and vigour in his remarks both on men and things : 
neither his subject nor his mind is elevated : here however let 
me observe, my fair disciples, that he and some others, of 
whom we speak in common conversation with little deference 
or reserve, may perhaps attract the notice and attention of the 
remotest nations in the remotest times. Suppose him to have 
his defects (all that you or anyone ever has supposed in him) 
yet how much greater is his intellect than the intellect of any 
among those who govern the world ! If these appeared in 
the streets of Athens, you would run to look at them, and 
ask your friends whether they had seen them pass. If you 
can not show us much reverence to Theophrastus, the defect is 
yours. He may not be what his friends have fancied him : 
but how great must he be to have obtained the partiality of 
such friends ! how few are greater ! how many millions less ! 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 261 

LEONTION. 

A slender tree, with scarcely any heart or pith in it, ought 
at least to have some play of boughs and branches : he, poor 
man, is inert. The leaves just twinkle, and nothing more. 

EPICURUS. 

He writes correctly and observantly. Even bad writers are 
blamed unjustly when they are blamed much. In comparison 
with many good and sensible men, they have evinced no slight 
degree of intelligence : yet we go frequently to those good and 
sensible men, and engage them to join us in our contempt and 
ridicule, of one who not only is wiser than they are, but who 
has made an effort to entertain or to instruct us, which they 
never did. 

TERXISSA. 

This is inconsiderate and ungrateful. 

EPICURUS. 

Truly and humanely have you spoken. Is it not remarkable 
that we are the fondest of acknowledging the least favorable 
and the least pleasurable of our partialities ? Whether in 
hatred or love, men are disposed to bring their conversation 
very near the object, yet shrink at touching the fairer. In 
hatred their sensibility is less delicate, and the inference comes 
closer : in love they readily give an arm to a confidant, almost 
to the upper step of their treasury. 

LEONTION. 

How unworthy of trust do you represent your fellow men ! 
But you began by censuring me. In my Treatise I have only 
defended your tenets against Theophrastus. 

EPICURUS. 

I am certain you have done it with spirit and eloquence, dear 
Leontion ; and there are but two words in it I would wish you 
to erase. 

LEONTION. 

Which are they ? 

EPICURUS. 

Theophrastus and Epicurus. If you love me, you will do 
nothing that may make you uneasy when you grow older ; 
nothing that may allow my adversary to say, " Leontion soon 
forgot her Epicurus." My maxim is, never to defend my 
systems or paradoxes : if you undertake it, the Athenians will 



262 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

insist that I impelled you secretly, or that my philosophy and 
my friendship were ineffectual on you. 

LEONTION. 

They shall never say that. 

EPICURUS. 

I would entreat you to dismiss altogether things quite 
unworthy of your notice, if your observations could fall on 
any subject without embellishing it. You do not want these 
thorns to light your fire with. 

LEONTION. 

Pardon the weak arm that would have defended what none 
can reach. 

EPICURUS. 

I am not unmoved by the kindness of your intentions. 
Most people, and philosophers too among the rest, when their 
own conduct or opinions are questioned, are admirably prompt 
and dexterous in the science of defence ; but when another's 
are assailed, they parry with as ill a grace and faltering a 
hand as if they never had taken a lesson in it at home. 
Seldom will they see what they profess to look for; and, 
finding it, they pick up with it a thorn under the nail. 
They canter over the solid turf, and complain that there is no 
corn upon it : they canter over the corn, and curse the ridges 
and furrows. All schools of philosophy, and almost all 
authors, are rather to be frequented for exercise than for 
freight : but this exercise ought to acquire us health and 
strength, spirits and good-humour. There is none of them 
that does not supply some truth useful to every man, and 
some untruth equally so to the few that are able to wrestle 
with it. If there were no falsehood in the world, there would 
be no doubt; if there were no doubt, there would be no 
inquiry ; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius ; 
and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, 
pale, and bloated. I wish we could demonstrate the existence 
of utility in some other evils as easily as in this. 

LEONTION. 

My remarks on the conduct and on the style of Theo- 
phrastus are not confined to him solely. I have taken at last 
a general view of our literature, and traced as far as I am 
able its deviation and decline. In ancient works we some- 
times see the mark of the chisel ; in modern we might almost 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 263 

suppose that no chisel was employed at all, and that everything 
was done by grinding and rubbing. There is an ordinariness, 
an indistinctness, a generalisation, not even to be found in a 
flock of sheep. As most reduce what is sand into dust, the 
few that avoid it run to a contrary extreme, and would force 
us to believe that what is original must be unpolished and 
uncouth. 

EPICURUS. 

There have been in all ages, and in all there will be, sharp 
and slender heads, made purposely and peculiarly for creeping 
into the crevices of our nature. While we contemplate the 
magnificence of the universe, and mensurate the fitness and 
adaptation of one part to another, the small philosopher 
hangs upon a hair or creeps within a wrinkle, and cries out 
shrilly from his elevation that we are blind and superficial. 
He discovers a wart, he pries into a pore, and he calls it 
knowledge of man. Poetry and criticism, and all the fine 
arts, have generated such living things, which not only will be 
co-existent with them, but will (I fear) survive them. Hence 
history takes alternately the form of reproval and of panegyric ; 
and science in its pulverised state, in its shapeless and 
colorless atoms, assumes the name of metaphysics. We find 
no longer the rich succulence of Herodotus, no longer the 
strong filament of Thucydides, but thoughts fit only for the 
slave, and language for the rustic and the robber. These 
writings can never reach posterity, nor serve better authors 
near us : for who would receive as documents the perversions 
of venality and party ? Alexander we know was intemperate, 
and Philip both intemperate and perfidious : we require not 
a volume of dissertation on the thread of history, to demon- 
strate that one or other left a tailor's bill unpaid, and the 
immorality of doing so; nor a supplement to ascertain on the 
best authorities which of the two it was. History should 
explain to us how nations rose and fell, what nurtured them 
in their growth, what sustained them in their maturity ; not 
which orator ran swiftest through the crowd from the right 
hand to the left, which assassin was too strong for manacles, or 
which felon too opulent for crucifixion. 

LEGATION. 

It is better, I own it, that such writers should amuse our 
idleness than excite our spleen. 



264 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

TERNISSA. 

What is spleen ? 

EPICURUS. 

Do not ask her ; she can not tell you. The spleen, Ternissa, 
is to the heart what Arimanes is to Oromazes. 

TERNISSA. 

I am little the wiser yet. Does he ever use such hard 
words with you ? 

LEONTION. 

He means the evil Genius and the good Genius, in the 
theogony of the Persians ; and would perhaps tell you, as he 
hath told me, that the heart in itself is free from evil, but 
very capable of receiving and too tenacious of holding it. 

EPICURUS. 

In our moral system, the spleen hangs about the heart and 
renders it sad and sorrowful, unless we continually keep it in 
exercise by kind offices, or in its proper place by serious inves- 
tigation and solitary questionings. Otherwise it is apt to 
adhere and to accumulate, until it deadens the principles of 
sound action, and obscures the sight. 

TERNISSA. 

It must make us very ugly when we grow old. 

LEONTION. 

In youth it makes us uglier, as not appertaining to it : a 
little more or less ugliness in decrepitude is hardly worth 
considering, there being quite enough of it from other 
quarters : I would stop it here however. 

TERNISSA. 

what a thing is age ! 

LEONTION. 

Death without death's quiet. But we will converse upon it 
when we know it better. 

EPICURUS. 

My beloved ! we will converse upon it at the present hour, 
while the harshness of its features is indiscernible, not only 
to you, but even to me, who am much nearer to it. Disa- 
greeable things, like disagreeable men, are never to be spoken 
of when they are present. Do we think, as we may do in 
such a morning as this, that the air awakens the leaves around 
us only to fade and perish ? Do we, what is certain, think 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNJSSA. 265 

that every note of music we ever heard, every voice that ever 
breathed into our bosoms, and played upon its instrument the 
heart, only wafted us on a little nearer to the tomb ? Let the 
idea not sadden but compose us. Let us yield to it, just as 
season yields to season, hour to hour, and with a bright 
serenity, such as Evening is invested with by the departing 
Sun. 

What ! are the dews falling, Ternissa ? Let them not yet, 
my lovely one ! 

TERXISSA. 

You soothe me, but to afflict me after ; you teach me, but 
to grieve. 

EPICURUS. 

At what just now ? 

TERXISSA. 

You are many years in advance of us, and may leave us 
both behind. 

EPICURUS. 

Let not the fault be yours. 

LEOXTIOX. 

How can it ? 

EPICURUS. 

The heart, Leontion, reflects a fuller and a fairer image 
of us than the eye can. 

TERXISSA. 

True, true, true ! 

LEONTION. 

Yes ; the heart recomposes the dust within the sepulcher, 
and evokes it ; the eye too, even when it has lost its bright- 
ness, loses not the power of reproducing the object it delighted 
in. It sees amid the shades of night, like the gods. 

EPICURUS. 

Sobs, too ! Ah, these can only be suppressed by force. 

LEONTION. 

By such ! She will sob all day before she is corrected. 

TERNISSA. 

Loose me. Leontion makes me blush. 

LEONTION. 

I? 

TERNISSA. 

It was you then, false Epicurus ! TVhy are you not dis- 



266 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TEHNISSA. 

creeter ? I wonder at you. If I could find my way home 
alone, I would go directly. 

LEONTION. 

Take breath first. 

TERNISSA. 

how spiteful ! Go away, tormenting girl, you shall not 
kiss me. 

LEONTION. 

Why? dicU*? 

TERNISSA. 

No indeed ; as you saw. What a question ! Kiss me ? 
for shame ; he only held me in his arms a little. Do not 
make him worse than he is. 

LEONTION. 

1 wonder he ventured. These little barks are very 
dangerous. Did you find it an easy matter to keep on your 
feet, Epicurus ? 

EPICURUS. 

We may venture, in such parties of pleasure, on waves 
which the sun shines on ; we may venture on affections which, 
if not quite tranquil, are genial to the soul. Age alone 
interposes its chain of icy mountains, and the star above their 
summit soon drops behind. Heroes and demigods have 
acknowledged it. Eecite to me, Ternissa, in proof of this, 
the scene of Peleus and Thetis. 

TERNISSA. 

You do not believe in goddesses ; and I do not believe in 
age. 

LEONTION. 

Whosoever fears neither, can repeat it. 

EPICURUS. 

Draw, each of you, one of these blades of grass I am 
holding, and the drawer of the shortest shall repeat it. 

TERNISSA. 

O Epicurus ! have you been quite fair ? 

EPICURUS. 

Why doubt me ? 

TERNISSA. 

Mine, I see, is the shortest. I drew out from your closed 
hand the blade which stood above the other. 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 267 

EPICURUS. 

Such grasses, like such men, may deceive us. 

TERNISSA. 

Must I begin ? You both nod. Leontion, you are poet- 
ical : I can only feel poetry. I can not read it tolerably ; 
and I am sure to forget it if I trust to memory. Beside, there 
is something in the melody of this in particular which I sadly 
fear will render me inarticulate. 

EPICURUS. 

I will relieve you from half your labour, by representing 
the character of Peleus. 

TERNISSA. 

Let me down. 

EPICURUS. 

The part will never permit it. 

TERNISSA. 

I continue mute then. Be quiet. I can not speak a 
syllable unless I am on my feet again. 

LEONTION. 

She wall be mute a long while, like the Pythoness, and 
speak at last. 

TERNISSA. 

Mischievous creature ! as if you could possibly tell what is 
passing in my mind. But wili not you, Epicurus, let me fall, 
since it must (I see) be repeated so ? Shall I begin ? for 
I am anxious to have it over. 

LEONTION. 

Why don't you ? we are as anxious as you are. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS.) 

" Peleus ! O thou whom the Gods conferred on me for 
all my portion of happiness . . and it was (I thought) too 
great . . 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" Goddess ! to me, to thy Peleus, how far more than 
Goddess ! why then this sudden silence ? why these tears ? 
The last we shed were when the Pates divided us, saying the 
Earth was not thine, and the brother of Zeus, he the ruler of 
the waters, had called thee. Those that fall between the 
beloved at parting, are bitter, and ought to be : woe to him 
who wishes they were not ! but those that flow again at the 



268 EPICURUS, LEONTIOX, AND TERNISSA. 

returning light of the blessed feet, should be refreshing and 
divine as morn. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" Support me, support me in thy arms, once more, once 
only. Lower not thy shoulder from my cheek, to gaze at 
those features that (in times past) so pleased thee. The sky 
is serene ; the heavens frown not on us : do they then prepare 
for us fresh sorrow ? Prepare for us ! ah me ! the word of 
Zeus is spoken : our Achilles is discovered : he is borne away 
in the black hollow ships of Aulis, and would have flown 
faster than they sail, to Troy. 

" Surely there are those among the Gods, or among the 
Goddesses, who might have forewarned me ; and they did not ! 
Were there no omens, no auguries, no dreams, to shake thee 
from thy security? no priest to prophesy? And what 
pastures are more beautiful than Larissa's ? what victims more 
stately? Could the soothsayers turn aside their eyes from 
these ? 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" Approach with me and touch the altar, my beloved ! 
Doth not thy finger now impress the soft embers of incense ? 
how often hath it burned, for him, for thee ! And the lo wings 
of the herds are audible for their leaders, from the sources of 
Apidanus and Enipeus to the sea-beach. They may yet 
prevail. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" Alas ! alas ! Priests can foretell but not avert the 
future ; and all they can give us are vain promises and abiding 
fears. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" Despond not, my long-lost Thetis ! Hath not a God led 
thee back to me ? why not hope then he will restore our son ? 
Which of them all hath such a boy offended ? 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" Uncertainties . . worse than uncertainties . . overthrow 
and overwhelm me. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" There is a comfort in the midst of every uncertainty, 
saving those which perplex the gods and confound the godlike, 
Love's. Be comforted ! not by my kisses, but by my words. 
Achilles may live til our old age. Ours ! Had I forgotten thy 



EPICURUS, LEONTIOX, AND TERNISSA. 269 

divinity ? forgotten it in thy beauty ? Other mortals think 
their beloved partake of it then mostly when they are gazing 
on their charms ; but thy tenderness is more than godlike ; 
and never have I known, never have I wished to know^, whether 
aught in our inferior nature may resemble it. 

TERNTSSA (AS THETIS). 

" A mortal so immutable ! the Powers above are less. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" Time without grief would not have greatly changed me. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

u There is a loveliness which youth may be without, and 
winch the gods want. To the voice of compassion not a shell 
in all the ocean is attuned ; and no tear ever dropped upon 
Olympus. Thou lookest as fondly as ever, and more pensively. 
Have time and grief done this ? and they alone ? my Peleus ! 
Tell me again, have no freshly fond anxieties ? . . . 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" Smile thus I smile anew and forget thy sorrows. 
Ages shall fly over my tomb, while thou art flourishing in 
imperishable youth, the desire of gods, the light of the depths 
of Ocean, the inspirer and sustainer of ever-flowing song. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" I receive thy words, I deposit them in my bosom, and 
bless them. Gods may desire me : I have loved Peleus. Our 
union had many obstacles; the envy of mortals, the jealousy 
of immortals, hostility and persecution from around, from 
below, and from above. When we were happy they parted us : 
and again they unite us in eternal grief. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS), 

" The wish of a Divinity is powerfuller than the elements, 
and swifter than the light. Hence thou (what to me is 
impossible) mayest see the sweet Achilles every day, every 
hour. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" How few ! alas how few ! I see him in the dust, in 
agony, in death : I see his blood on the flints, his yellow hair 
flapping in its current, his hand unable to remove it from his 
eyes. I hear his voice ; and it calls not upon me ! Mothers 
are soon forgotten ! It is weakness to love the weak ! I could 



270 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

not save him ! He would have left the caverns of Ocean, and 
the groves and meadows of Elysium, though resounding with 
the songs of love and heroism, for a field of battle. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" He may yet live many years. Troy hath been taken once 
already. 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" He must perish ; and at Troy ; and now. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" The now of the gods is more than life's duration : other 
gods and other worlds are formed within it. If indeed he 
must perish at Troy, his ashes will lie softly on hers. Thus 
fall our beauteous son ! thus rest Achilles ! 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" Twice nine years have scarcely yet passed over his head, 
since ' the youth of JEmathia ! the swift, the golden- 
haired Peleus ! y were the only words sounded in the halls of 
Tethys. How many shells were broken for their hoarseness ! 
how many reproofs were heard by the Tritons for interrupting 
the slumbers ... of those who never slept ! But they feigned 
sound sleep : and joy and kindness left the hearts of sisters. 
We loved too well for others to love us. 

" Why do I remember the day ? why do I remind thee of 
it ? . . . my Achilles dies ! it was the day that gave me my 
Achilles ! Dearer he was to me than the light of heaven, before 
he ever saw it : and how much dearer now ! when, bursting 
forth on earth like its first dayspring, all the loveliness of 
Nature stands back, and grows pale and faint before his. He 
is what thou wert when I first beheld thee. How can I bear 
again so great a deprivation ? 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

" O, thou art fallen ! thou art fallen through my embrace, 
when I thought on him more than on thee. Look up again ; 
look, and forgive me. No : thy forgiveness I deserve not . . . 
but did I deserve thy love? Thy solitude, thy abasement, thy 
parental tears, and thy fall to the earth, are from me ! Why 
doth aught of youth linger with me ? why not come age and 
death ? The monster of Calydon made (as thou knowest) his 
first and most violent rush against this arm ; no longer fit for 
war, no longer a defence to the people. And is the day too 
come when it no longer can sustain my Thetis ? 



EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 271 

TERNISSA (AS THETIS). 

" Protend it not to the skies ! invoke not, name not, any 
Deity ! I fear them all. Nay, lift me not thus above thy 
head, Peleus ! reproaching the gods with such an awful 
look ; with a look of beauty which they will not pity, with a 
look of defiance which they may not brook. 

EPICURUS (AS PELEUS). 

U Doth not my hand enclasp that slender foot, at which the 
waves of Ocean cease to be tumultuous, and the children of 
iEolus to disturb their peace ? O, if in the celestial coolness 
of thy cheek, now resting on my head, there be not the breath 
and gift of immortality; 0, if Zeus hath any thunder-bolt in 
reserve for me ; let this, my beloved Thetis, be the hour ! w 

LEONTION. 

You have repeated it admirably ; and you well deserve to be 
seated as you are, on the only bank of violets in tins solitary 
place. Indeed you must want repose. Why do you continue 
to look sad ? It is all over. Ah my silly comfort ! That may 
be th.Q reason. 

TERNISSA. 

I shall be very angry with him for the way (if you saw it) 
in which he made me slip down : and I should have been so 
at the time, if it would not have hurt the representation. 

Yes, indeed, you may expect it, sir ! 

EPICURUS. 

I shall always say, u at any hour but this** 

TERNISSA. 

Talk reasonably ; and return to your discourse on age. I 
wish you had a little more of its prudence and propriety. 

EPICURUS. 

And what else ? 

TERNISSA. 

! those are quite enough. 

EPICURUS. 

There we agree. And now for obedience to your wishes. 
Peleus, you observe, makes no complaint that age is advancing 
on him : death itself is not unwelcome : for he had been 
happier than he could ever hope to be again. They who have 
long been wretched wish for death : they who have long been 



272 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

fortunate, may with equal reason : but it is wiser in each 
condition to await it than to desire it. 

TERNISSA. 

I love to hear stories of heroic men, in whose bosoms there 
is left a place for tenderness. 

Leontion said that even bad writers may amuse our idle 
hours : alas ! even good ones do not much amuse mine, unless 
they record an action of love or generosity. As for the 
graver, why can not they come among us and teach us, just as 
you do? 

EPICURUS. 

"Would you wish it ? 

TERNISSA. 

No, no ; I do not want them : only I was imagining how 
pleasant it is to converse as we are doing, and how sorry I 
should be to pore over a book instead of it. Books always 
make me sigh, and think about other tilings. Why do you 
laugh, Leontion? 

EPICURUS. 

She was mistaken in saying bad authors may amuse our 
idleness. Leontion knows not then how sweet and sacred 
idleness is. 

LEONTION. 

To render it sweet and sacred, the heart must have a little 
garden of its own, with its umbrage and fountains and peren- 
nial flowers ; a careless company ! Sleep is called sacred as well 
as sweet by Homer : and idleness is but a step from it. The 
idleness of the wise and virtuous should be both, it being the 
repose and refreshment necessary for past exertions and for 
future : it punishes the bad man, it rewards the good : the 
Deities enjoy it, and Epicurus praises it. I was indeed wrong 
in my remark : for we should never seek amusement in the 
foibles of another, never in coarse language, never in low 
thoughts. When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it 
grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what 
ought to be found at home. 

EPICURUS. 

Aspasia believed so, and bequeathed to Leontion, with every 
other gift that Nature had bestowed upon her, the power of 
delivering her oracles from diviner lips. 



EPICURUS, LEGATION, AND TERNISSA. 273 

LEONTION. 

Fie ! Epicurus ! It is well you hide my face for me with 
your hand. ]\ T ow take it away : we can not walk in this 
manner. 

EPICURUS. 

No word could ever fall from you without its weight ; no 
breath from you ought to lose itself in the common air. 

LEONTION. 

For shame ! "What would you have ? 

TERNIS3A. 

He knows not what he would hare nor what he would say. 
I must sit down again. I declare I scarcely understand a 
single syllable. Well, he is very good, to teaze you no longer. 
Epicurus lias an excellent heart ; he would give pain to no one ; 
least of all to you. 

LEONTION. 

I have pained him by this foolish book, and he would only 
assure me that he does not for a moment bear me malice. Take 
the volume : take it, Epicurus ! tear it in pieces. 

EPICURUS. 

No, Leontion ! I shall often look with pleasure on this 
trophy of brave humanity : let me kiss the hand that raises it ! 

TERNISSA. 

I am tired of sitting : I am quite stiff : when shall we walk 
homeward ? 

EPICURUS. 

Take my arm, Ternissa ! 

TERNISSA. 

! I had forgotten that I proposed to myself a trip as far 
up as the pinasters, to look at the precipice of Orithyeia. Come 
along ! come along ! how alert does the sea-air make us ! I 
seem to feel growing at my feet and shoulders the wings of 
Zethes or Calais. 

EPICURUS. 

Leontion walks the nimblest to day. 

TERNISSA. 

To display her activity and strength, she runs before us. 
Sweet Leontion, how good she is ! but she should have stayed 
for us : it would be in vain to try to overtake her. 

No, Epicurus ! Mind ! take care ! you are crushing these 



274 EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA. 

little oleanders . . and now the strawberry plants . . the 
whole heap . . Not I, indeed. What would my mother 
say, if she knew it ? And Leontion ? she will certainly look 
back. 

EPICURUS. 

The fairest of the Eudaimones never look back : such are 
the Hours and Love, Opportunity and Leontion. 

TERNISSA. 

How could you dare to treat me in this manner ? I did not 
say again I hated anything. 

EPICURUS. 

Forgive me ! 

TERNISSA. 

Violent creature ! 

EPICURUS. 

If tenderness is violence. Forgive me ; and say you 
love me. 

TERNISSA. 

All at once ? could you endure such boldness ? 

EPICURUS. 

Pronounce it ! whisper it ! 

TERNISSA. 

Go, go. Would it be proper ? 

EPICURUS. 

Is that sweet voice asking its heart or me ? let the worthier 
give the answer. 

TERNISSA. 

O Epicurus ! you are very, very dear to me . . and are 
the last in the world that would ever tell you were called so. 



RHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. 275 



EHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. 



ZENOBIA. 

My beloved ! my beloved ! I can endure the motion of the 
horse no longer ; his weariness makes his pace so tiresome to 
me. Surely we have ridden far, very far from home ; and how 
shall we ever pass the wide and rocky stream, among the 
whirlpools of the rapid and the deep Araxes ? From the first 
sight of it, my husband ! you have been silent : you have 
looked at me at one time intensely, at another wildly : have 
you mistaken the road ? or the ford ? or the ferry ? 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Tired, tired ! did I say ? ay, thou must be. Here thou 
shalt rest : this before us is the place for it. Alight ; drop 
into my arms ; art thou within them ? 

ZENOBIA. 

Always in fear for me, my tender thoughtful Rhadamistus ! 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Bhadamistus then once more embraces his Zenobia ! 



And presses her to his bosom as with the first embrace. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

"What is the first to the last ! 

ZENOBIA. 

Nay, this is not the last. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Not quite, (0 agony !) not quite; once more. 

ZENOBIA. 

So : with a kiss : which you forget to take. 



RHADAMISTUS 

And shall this shake my purpose ? it may my limbs, my 
heart, my brain ; but what my soul so deeply determined, it 
shall strengthen : as winds do trees in forests. 

T 2 



576 RHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. 



Come, come ! cheer up< How good you are to be persuaded 
by me : back again at one word ! Hark ! where are those 
drums and bugles ? on which side are these echoes ? 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Alight, dear, dear Zenobia ! And does Rhadamistus then 
press thee to his bosom ? Can it be ? 



Can it cease to be ? you would have said, my Rhadamistus ! 
Hark ! again those trumpets ? on which bank of the water 
are they ? Now they seem to come from the mountains, and 
now r along the river. Men's voices too ! threats and yells ! 
You, my Rhadamistus, could escape. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Wherefor ? with whom ? and whither in all Asia ? 

ZENOBIA. 

Fly ! there are armed men climbing up the cliffs. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

It was only the sound of the waves in the hollows of them, 
and the masses of pebbles that rolled down from under you as 
you knelt to listen. 

ZENOBIA. 

Turn round ; look behind ! is it dust yonder, or smoke ? 
and is it the sun, or what is it, shining so crimson? not 
shining any longer now, but deep and dull purple, embodying 
into gloom. 

RHADAMISTUS. . 

It is the sun, about to set at mid-day ; we shall soon see no 
more of him. 

ZENOBIA. 

Indeed ! what an ill omen ! but how can you tell that ? 
Do you think it ? I do not. Alas ! alas ! the dust and the 
sounds are nearer. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Prepare then, my Zenobia ! 

ZENOBIA. 

I was always prepared for it. 



RHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. 27 7 

EHADAMISTUS. 

What reason, unconfiding girl ! from the day of our 

union, have I ever given you, to accuse, or to suspect me ? 

ZENOBIA. 

Xone, none : your love, even in these sad moments, raises 
me above the reach of fortune. How can it pain me so ? Do 
I repine ? Worse may it pain me : but let that love never 
pass away ! 

RHADAMISTUS, 

Was it then the loss of power and kingdom for which 
Zenobia was prepared ? 

ZENOBIA, 

The kingdom was lost when Ehadamistus lost the affection 
01 his subjects. Why did they not love you ? how could they 
not ? Tell me so strange a thing." 

EHADAMISTUS. 

Tables, fables i about the death of Mithridates and his 
children : declamations, outcries : as it' it were as easy to 
bring men to life again as . . I know not what . . to call 
after them. 

ZEXOBIA. 

But about the children ? 

EHADAMISTUS. 

In all governments there are secrets. 

ZEXOBIA. 

Between us ? 

EHADAMISTUS. 

No longer : time presses : not a moment is left us, not a 
refuge, not a hope ! 

ZZXOBIA. 

Then why draw the sword ? 

EHADAMISTUS. 

Wanted I courage ? did I not light as becomes a king ? 

ZEXOBIA. 

True, most true. 

EHADAMISTUS. 

Is my resolution lost to me ? did I but dream- 1 had it ? 

* From the seclusion of the Asiatic women. Zenobia may be supposed 
to have been ignorant of the crimes Ehadamistus had committed. 



278 HHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. 

ZENOBIA. 

Nobody is very near yet ; nor can they cross the dell where 
we did. Those are fled who could have shown the pathway. 
Think not of defending me. Listen ! look ! what thousands 
are coming. The protecting blade above my head can only 
provoke the enemy. And do you stil keep it there ? You 
grasp my arm too hard. Can you look unkindly ? Can it 
be ? think again and spare me, Rhadamistus ! Erom the 
vengeance of man, from the judgments of heaven, the unborn 
may preserve my husband. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

We must die ! They advance ; they see us ; they rush 
forward ! 

ZENOBIA. 

Me, me would you strike ? Rather let me leap from the 
precipice. 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Hold ! Whither would thy desperation ? Art thou again 
within my grasp ? 

ZENOBIA. 

my beloved ! never let me call you cruel ! let me love 
you in the last hour of seeing you as in the first. I must, I 
must . . and be it my thought in death that you love me so ! 
I would have cast away my life to save you from remorse : it 
may do that and more, preserved by you. Listen ! listen ! 
among those who pursue us there are many fathers ; childless 
by his own hand, none. Do not kill our baby ♦ . the best of 
our hopes when we had many . . the baby not yet ours ! 
Who shall then plead for you, my unhappy husband ? 

RHADAMISTUS. 

My honour; and before me, sole arbiter and sole audience 
of our cause. Bethink thee, Zenobia, of the indignities . . not 
bearing on my fortunes . * but imminent over thy beauty ! 
What said I ? did I bid thee think of them ? Rather die than 
imagine, or than question me, what they are ! Let me endure 
two deaths before my own, crueler than wounds or than age 
or than servitude could inflict on me, rather than make me 
name them. 

ZENOBIA. 

Strike ! Lose not a moment so precious ! Why hesitate 
now, my generous brave defender ? 



RHADAMISTUS AND ZENOBIA. 279 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Zenobia ! dost thou bid it ? 

ZENOBIA. 

Courage is no longer a crime in you. Hear the shouts, 
the threats, the imprecations ! Hear them, my beloved ! let 
me no more ! 

RHADAMISTUS. 

Embrace me not, Zenobia ! loose me, loose me ! 

ZENOBIA. 

I can not : thrust me away ! Divorce . . but with death . . 
the disobedient wife, no longer your Zenobia. {He strikes.) 
Oh ! oh ! one innocent head . . in how few days . . should 
haYe reposed . . no, not upon this blood. Swim across ! is 
there a descent . . an easy one, a safe one, anywhere ? I might 
haYe found it for you ! ill-spent time ! heedless woman ! 

EHADAinSTYS. 

An arrow hath pierced me : more are showering round us. 
Go, my life's flower ! the blighted branch drops after. Away ! 
forth into the stream ! strength is yet left me for it. {He 
throws her into the river.) She sinks not ! last calamity ! 
She sinks ! she sinks ! Now both are well, and fearless ! One 
look more ! grant one more look ! On what ? where was it ? 
which whirl? which ripple? they are gone too. How calm is 
the , haven of the most troubled life ! I enter it ! Eebels ! 
traitors ! slaves ! subjects ! why gape ye ? why halt ye ? On, 
on, dastards ! Oh that ye dared to follow ! [He plunges 
armed into the Araxes.) 



280 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 



TIMOTHEUS. 

I am delighted, my cousin Lucian, to observe how popular 
are become your Dialogues of the Bead. Nothing can be so 
gratifying and satisfactory to a rightly disposed mind, as the 
subversion of imposture by the force of ridicule. It hath 
scattered the crowd of heathen gods as if a thunderbolt had 
fallen in the midst of them. Now, I am confident you never 
would have assailed the false religion, unless you were prepared 
for the reception of the true. For it hath always been an 
indication of rashness and precipitancy, to throw down an 
edifice before you have collected materials for reconstruction. 

LUCIAN. 

Of all metaphors and remarks, I believe this of yours, my 
good cousin Timotheus, is the most trite, and pardon me if I 
add, the most untrue. Surely we ought to remove an error 
the instant we detect it, although it may be out of our com- 
petence to state and establish what is right. A lie should be 
exposed as soon as born : we are not to wait until a healthier 
child is begotten. Whatever is evil in any way should be 
abolished. The husbandman never hesitates to eradicate weeds, 
or to burn them up, because he may not happen at the time 
to carry a sack on his shoulder with wheat or barley in it. 
Even if no wheat or barley is to be sown in future, the 
weeding and burning are in themselves beneficial, and some- 
thing better will spring up. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

That is not so certain. 

LUCIAN. 

Doubt it as you may, at least you will allow that the tem- 
porary absence of evil is an advantage. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I think, Lucian, you w r ould reason much better if you 
would come over to our belief. 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 281 

LUCIAN. 

I was unaware that belief is an encourager and guide to 
reason. 

TEUOTHEUS. 

Depend upon it, there can be no stability of truth, no 
elevation of genius, without an unwavering faith in our holy 
mysteries. Babes and sucklings who are blest with it, stand 
higher, intellectually as well as morally, than stiff unbelievers 
and proud sceptics. 

LUCIAN. 

I do not wonder that so many are firm holders of this 
novel doctrine. It is pleasant to grow wise and virtuous at 
so small an expenditure of thought or time. This saying of 
yours is exactly what I heard spoken with angry gravity not 
long ago. 

TMOTHEUS. 

Angry ! no wonder ! for it is impossible to keep our patience 
when truths so incontrovertible are assailed. What was your 

answer ? 

LUCIAN. 

My answer was. If you talk in this manner, my honest 
friend, you will excite a spirit of ridicule in the gravest and 
most saturnine men, who never had let a laugh out of their 
breasts before. Lie to me, and welcome ; but beware lest your 
own heart take you to task for it, reminding you that both 
anger and falsehood are reprehended by all religions, yours 
included. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Lucian ! Lucian ! you have always been called profane. 

LUCIAN. 

For what ? for having turned into ridicule the gods whom 
you have turned out of house and home, and are reducing 
to dust ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Well • but you are equally ready to turn into ridicule the 
true and holy. 

LUCIAN. 

In other words, to turn myself into a fool. He who brings 
ridicule to bear against Truth, finds in his hand a blade 
without a hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit 
flickers and expires against the incombustible walls of her 
sanctuary. 



282 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Fine talking ! Do you know,, you have really been called 
an atheist ? 

LUCIAN. 

Yes, yes ; I know it well. But, in fact, I believe 
there are almost as few atheists in the world as there are 
Christians. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

How ! as few ? Most of Europe, most of Asia, most of 
Africa, is Christian. 

LUCIAN. 

Show me five men in each who obey the commands of 
Christ, and I will show you five hundred in this very city who 
observe the dictates of Pythagoras. Every Pythagorean obeys 
his defunct philosopher ; and almost every Christian disobeys 
his living God. Where is there one who practises the most 
important and the easiest of his commands, to abstain from 
strife? Men easily and perpetually find something new to quarrel 
about; but the objects of affection are limited in number, 
and grow up scantily and slowly. Even a small house . is 
often too spacious for them, and there is a vacant seat at the 
table. Religious men themselves, when the Deity has bestowed 
on them everything they prayed for, discover, as a peculiar 
gift of Providence, some fault in the actions or opinions of a 
neighbour, and run it down, crying and shouting after it, with 
more alacrity and more clamour than boys would a leveret or 
a squirrel in the play-ground. Are our years and our 
intellects, and the word of God itself, given us for this, O 
Timotheus ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

A certain latitude, a liberal construction. . . 

LUCIAN. 

Ay, ay ! These " liberal constructions " let loose all the 
worst passions into those "certain latitudes." The priests 
themselves, who ought to be the poorest, are the richest; who 
ought to be the most obedient, are the most refractory and 
rebellious. All trouble and all piety are vicarious. They 
send missionaries, at the cost of others, into foren lands, to 
teach observances which they supersede at home. I have 
ridiculed the puppets of all features, all colours, all sizes, by 
which an impudent and audacious set of impostors have 
been gaining an easy livelihood these two thousand years. 



LUCIAN AND TTMOTHEUS. 283 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Gently ! gently ! Ours have not been at it yet two 
hundred. We abolish all idolatry. We know that Jupiter 
was not the father of gods and men : we know that Mars was 
not the Lord of Hosts : we know who is : we are quite at 
ease upon that question. 

LUCIAN. 

Are you so fanatical, my good Timotheus, as to imagine 
that the Creator of the world cares a fig by what appellation 
you adore him ? whether you call him on one occasion Jupiter, 
on another Apollo ? I will not add Mars or Lord of Hosts • 
for, wanting as I may be in piety, I am not, and never was, so 
impious as to call the Maker the Destroyer ; to call him Lord 
of Hosts who, according to your holiest of books, declared so 
lately and so plainly that he permits no hosts at all; much 
less will he take the command of one against another. Would 
any man in his senses go down into the cellar, and seize first 
an amphora from the right, and then an amphora from the 
left, for the pleasure of breaking them in pieces, and of letting 
out the wine he had taken the trouble to put in ? We are 
not contented with attributing to the gods our own infirmities ; 
we make them even more wayward, even more passionate, even 
more exigent and more malignant : and then some of us try 
to coax and cajole them, and others run away from them 
outright. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

No wonder : but only in regard to yours : and even those 
are types. 

LUCIAN. 

There are honest men who occupy their lives in discovering 
types for all things. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Truly and rationally thou speakest now. Honest men and 
wise men above their fellows are they, and the greatest of all 
discoverers. There are many types above thy reach, 
Lucian ! 

LUCIAN. 

And one which my mind, and perhaps yours also, can com- 
prehend. There is in Italy, I hear, on the border of a quiet 
and beautiful lake/ a temple dedicated to Diana ; the priests 

* The lake of Nemi. 



284 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

of which temple have murdered each his predecessor for 
unrecorded ages. 

TIMOTHECJS. 

What of that ? They were idolaters. 

LUCIAN. 

They made the type, however : take it home with you, and 
hang it up in your temple. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Why i you seem to have forgotten on a sudden that I am a 
Christian : you are talking of the heathens. 

LUCIAN. 

True ! true ! I am near upon eighty years of age, and 
to my poor eyesight one thing looks very like another. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You are too indifferent. 

LUCIAN. 

No indeed. I love those best who quarrel least, and 
who bring into public use the most civility and good- 
humour. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Our holy religion inculcates this duty especially. 

LUCIAN. 

Such being the case, a pleasant story will not be thrown 
away upon you. Xenophanes, my townsman of Samosata, was 
resolved to buy a new horse : he had tried him, and liked him 
well enough. I asked him why he wished to dispose of his 
old one, knowing how sure-footed he was, how easy in his 
paces, and how quiet in his pasture. " Very true, Lucian/' 
said he ; " the horse is a clever horse \ noble eye, beautiful 
figure, stately step; rather too fond of neighing and of 
shuffling a little in the vicinity of a mare \ but tractable and 
good-tempered/' "I would not have parted with him then/' 
said I. "The fact is/' replied he, "my grandfather, whom I 
am about to visit, likes no horses but what are Satumized. 
To-morrow I begin my journey : come and see me set out." 
I went at the hour appointed. The new purchase looked quiet 
and demure ; but he also pricked up his ears, and gave sundry 
other tokens of equinity, when the more interesting part of 
his fellow-creatures came near him. As the morning oats 
began to operate, he grew more and more unruly, and snapped 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 285 

at one friend of Xenoplianes, and sidled against another, and 
gave a kick at a third, " All in play ! all in play ! w said 
Xenoplianes ; "his nature is more of a lamb's than a horse's." 
However, these mute salutations being over, away went 
Xenoplianes. In the evening, when my lamp had just been 
replenished for the commencement of my studies, my friend 
came in striding as if he stil were across the saddle. " I am 
apprehensive, O Xenoplianes/' said I, " your new acquisition 
has disappointed you." "Not in the least," answered he. 
u I do assure you, O Lucian, he is the very horse I was 
looking out for." On my requesting him to be seated, he no 
more thought of doing so than if it had been in the presence 
of the Persian king. I then handed my lamp to him, telling 
him (as was true) it contained all the oil I had in the house, 
and protesting I should be happier to finish my Dialogue in 
the morning. He took the lamp into my bed-room, and 
appeared to be much refreshed on his return. Nevertheless, 
he treated his chair with great delicacy and circumspection, 
and evidently was afraid of breaking it by too sudden a 
descent. I did not revert to the horse : but he went on of 
his own accord. " I declare to you, Lucian, it is impossible 
for me to be mistaken in a palfrey. My new one is the only 
one in Samosata that could carry me at one stretch to my 
grandfather's." "But has he?" said I, timidly. "No; 
he has not yet," answered my friend. " To-morrow then, I 
am afraid, we really must lose you." " No," said he ; " the 
horse does trot hard: but he is the better for that: I shall 
soon get used to him." In fine, my worthy friend deferred 
his visit to his grandfather : his rides were neither long nor 
frequent : he was ashamed to part with his purchase, boasted 
of him everywhere, and, humane as he is by nature, could 
almost have broken on the cross the quiet contented owner of 
old Bucephalus.' 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Am I to understand by this, O cousin Lucian, that I ought 
to be contented with the impurities of paganism ? 

LUCIAN. 

Unless you are very unreasonable. A moderate man finds 
plenty in it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

"We abominate the Deities who patronise them, and we hurl 
down the images of the monsters. 



2S6 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

LUCIAN. 

Sweet cousin! be tenderer to my feelings. In such a 
tempest as this, my spark of piety may be blown out. Hold 
your hand cautiously before it, until I can find my way. 
Believe me, no Deities (out of their own houses) patronise 
immorality ; none patronise unruly passions, least of all the 
fierce and ferocious. In my opinion, you are wrong in throw- 
ing down the images of those among them who look on you 
benignly : the others I give up to your discretion. But I 
think it impossible to stand habitually in the presence of a 
sweet and open countenance, graven or depicted, without in 
some degree partaking of the character it expresses. Never 
tell any man that he can derive no good, in his devotions, 
from this or from that : abolish neither hope nor gratitude. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

God is offended at vain efforts to represent him. 

LUCIAN. 

No such thing, my dear Timotheus. If you knew him at 
all, you would not talk of him so irreverently. He is pleased, 
I am convinced, at every effort to resemble him, at every wish 
to remind both ourselves and others of his benefits. You 
can not think so often of him without an effigy. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

What likeness is there in the perishable to the imperishable ? 

LUCIAN. 

I see no reason why there may not be a similitude. All 
that the senses can comprehend may be represented by any 
material ; clay or fig-tree, bronze or ivory, porphyry or gold. 
Indeed I have a faint remembrance that, according to your 
sacred volumes, man was made by God after his own image. 
If so, man's intellectual powers are worthily exercised in 
attempting to collect all that is beautiful, serene, and dignified, 
and to bring him back to earth again by showing him the 
noblest of his gifts, the work most like his own. Surely he 
can not hate or abandon those who thus cherish his memory, 
and thus implore his regard. Perishable and imperfect is 
everything human : but in these very qualities I find the best 
reason for striving to attain what is least so. Would not any 
father be gratified by seeing his child attempt to delineate his 
features ? And would not the gratification be rather increased 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 287 

than diminished by his incapacity? How long shall the 
narrow mind of man stand between goodness and omni- 
potence? Perhaps the effigy of your ancestor Isknos is 
unlike him : whether it is or no, you can not tell : but you 
keep it in your hall, and would be angry if anybody broke it 
to pieces or defaced it. Be quite sure there are many who 
think as much of their gods as you think of your ancestor 
Isknos, and who see in their images as good a likeness. Let 
men have their own way, especially their way to the temples. 
It is easier to drive them out of one road than into another. 
Our judicious and good-humoured Trajan has found it neces- 
sary on many occasions to chastise the law-breakers of your sect, 
indifferent as he is what gods are worshipt, so long as their 
followers are orderly and decorous. The fiercest of the 
Dacians never knocked off Jupiter's beard, or broke an arm 
off Yenus : and the emperor will hardly tolerate in those who 
have received a liberal education what he would punish in 
barbarians. Do not wear out his patience : try rather to 
imitate his equity, his equanimity, and forbearance. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I have been listening to you with much attention, Lucian, 
for I seldom have heard you speak with such gravity. And 
yet, cousin Lucian ! I really do find in you a sad deficiency 
of that wisdom which alone is of any value. You talk of 
Trajan ! what is Trajan ? 

LUCIAN. 

A beneficent citizen, an impartial judge, a sagacious ruler ; 
the comrade of every brave soldier, the friend and associate of 
every man eminent in genius, throughout his empire, the 
empire of the world. All arts, all sciences, all philosophies, 
all religions, are protected by him. Wherefor his name will 
flourish, when the- proudest of these have perished in the land 
of Egypt. Philosophies and religions will strive, struggle, 
and suffocate one another. Priesthoods, I know not how 
many, are quarreling and scuffling in the street at this 
instant, all calling on Trajan to come and knock an antagonist 
on the head ; and the most peaceful of them, as it wishes to 
be thought, proclaiming him an infidel for turning a deaf ear 
to its imprecations. Mankind was never so happy as under 
his guidance : and he has nothing now to do but to put 
down the battles of the gods. If they must fight it out, he 
will insist on our neutrality. 



288 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

He has no authority and no influence over us in matters of 
faith. A wise and upright man, whose serious thoughts lead 
him forward to religion, will never be turned aside from it by 
any worldly consideration or any human force. 

LUCIAN. 

True : but mankind is composed not entirely of the upright 
and the wise. I suspect that we may find some, here and 
there, who are rather too fond of novelties in the furniture of 
temples : and I have observed that new sects are apt to warp, 
crack, and split, under the heat they generate. Our homely 
old religion has run into fewer quarrels, ever since the Centaurs 
and Lapiths (whose controversy was on a subject quite com- 
prehensible), than yours has engendered in twenty years. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We shall obviate that inconvenience by electing a supreme 
Pontif to decide all differences. It has been seriously thought 
about long ago ; and latterly we have been making out an 
ideal series down to the present day, in order that our 
successors in the ministry may have stepping-stones up to the 
fountain-head. At first the disseminators of our doctrines 
were equal in their commission : we do not approve of this 
any longer, for reasons of our own. 

LUCIAN. 

Tou may shut, one after another, all our other temples, 
but, I plainly see, you will never shut the temple of Janus. 
The Eoman empire will never lose its pugnacious character 
while your sect exists. The only danger is, lest the fever rage 
internally and consume the vitals. If you sincerely wish your 
religion to be long-lived, maintain in it the spirit of its consti- 
tution, and keep it patient, humble, abstemious, domestic, and 
zealous only in the services of humanity. Whenever the 
higher of your priesthood shall attain the riches they are 
aiming at, the people will envy their possessions and revolt 
from their impostures. Do not let them seize upon the 
palace, and shove their God again into the manger. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Lucian ! Lucian ! I call this impiety. 

LUCIAN. 

So do I, and shudder at its consequences. Caverns which 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 289 

at first look inviting, the roof at the aperture green with 
overhanging ferns and clinging mosses, then glittering with 
native gems and with water as sparkling and pellucid, freshen- 
ing the air all around ; these caverns grow darker and closer, 
until you find yourself among animals that shun the daylight, 
adhering to the walls, hissing along the bottom, flapping, 
screeching, gaping, glaring, making you shrink at the sounds, 
and sicken at the smells, and afraid to advance or retreat. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

To what can this refer ? Our caverns open on verdure, and 
terminate in veins of gold. 

LUCIAN. 

Veins of gold, my good Timotheus, such as your excava- 
tions have opened and are opening, in the spirit of avarice 
and ambition, will be washed (or as you would say purified) in 
streams of blood. Arrogance, intolerance, resistance to 
authority and contempt of law, distinguish your aspiring 
sectarians from the other subjects of the empire. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Blindness hath often a calm and composed countenance : 
but, my cousin Lucian ! it usually hath also the advantage of 
a cautious and a measured step. It hath pleased God to blind 
you, like all the other adversaries of our faith : but he has 
given you no staff to lean upon. You object against us the 
very vices from which we are peculiarly exempt. 

LUCIAX. 

Then it is all a story, a fable, a fabrication, about one of 
your earlier leaders cutting off with his sword a servant's ear ? 
If the accusation is true, the offence is heavy. For not only 
was the wounded man innocent of any provocation, but he is 
represented as being in the service of the High Priest at 
Jerusalem. Moreover, from the direction and violence of the 
blow, it is evident that his life was aimed at. According to 
law, you know, my dear cousin, all the party might have been 
condemned to death, as accessories to an attempt at murder. 
I am unwilling to think so unfavourably of your sect; nor 
indeed do I see the possibility that, in such an outrage, the 
principal could be pardoned. For any man but a soldier to 
go about armed is against the Roman law, which, on that 
head, as on many others, is borrowed from the Athenian ; and 



290 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

it is incredible that in any civilised country so barbarous a 
practice can be tolerated. Travelers do indeed relate that, in 
certain parts of India there are princes at whose courts even 
civilians are armed. But traveler hath occasionally the same 
signification as liar, and India as fable. However, if the 
practice really does exist in that remote and rarely visited 
country, it must be in some region of it very far beyond the 
Indus or the Ganges : for the nations situated between those 
rivers are, and were in the reign of Alexander, and some 
thousand years before his birth, as civilised as the Europeans: 
nay, incomparably more courteous, more industrious, and more 
pacific \ the three grand criterions. 

But answer my question: is there any foundation for so 
mischievous a report ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

There was indeed, so to say, an ear, or something of the 
kind, abscinded; probably by mistake. But High Priests' 
servants are propense to follow the swaggering gait of their 
masters, and to carry things with a high hand, in such wise as 
to excite the choler of the most quiet. If you knew the 
character of the eminently holy man who punished the atro- 
cious insolence of that bloody-minded wretch, you would be 
sparing of your animadversions. "We take him for our model. 

LUCIAN. 

I see you do. 



TIMOTHEUS. 



We proclaim him Prince of the Apostles. 

LUCIAN. 

I am the last in the world to question his princely qualifica- 
tions : but, if I might advise you, it should be to follow in 
preference him whom you acknowledge to be an unerring 
guide ; who delivered to you his ordinances with his own hand, 
equitable, plain, explicit, compendious, and complete; who 
committed no violence, who countenanced no injustice, whose 
compassion was without weakness, whose love was without 
frailty, whose life was led in humility, in purity, in beneficence, 
and, at the end, laid down in obedience to his father's will. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Ah, Lucian ! what strangely imperfect notions ! all that is 
little. 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 291 

LUCIAN. 

Enough to follow. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Not enough, to compell others. I did indeed hope, 

Lucian ! that you would again come forward with the 
irresistible arrows of your wit, and unite with us against our 
adversaries. By what you have just spoken, I doubt no 
longer that you approve of the doctrines inculcated by the 
blessed founder of our religion. 

LUCIAN. 

To the best of my understanding. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

So ardent is my desire for the salvation of your precious 
soul, my cousin ! that I would devote many hours of every 
day to disputation with you, on the principal points of our 
Christian controversy. 

LUCIAN. 

Many thanks, my kind Timotheus ! But I think the 
blessed founder of your religion very strictly forbade that there 
should be any points of controversy. Not only has he pro- 
hibited them on the doctrines he delivered, but on everything 
else. Some of the most obstinate might never have doubted 
of his divinity, if the conduct of his followers had not repelled 
them from the belief of it. How can they imagine you 
sincere when they see you disobedient ? It is in vain for you 
to protest that you worship the God of Peace, when you are 
found daily in the courts and market-places with clenched fists 
and bloody noses. I acknowledge the full value of your 
offer ; but really I am as anxious for the salvation of your 
precious time, as you appear to be for the salvation of my 
precious soul ; particularly since I am come to the conclusion 
that souls can not be lost, and that time can. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We mean by salvation exemption from eternal torments. 

LUCIAN. 

Among all my old gods and their children, morose as some 
of the senior are, and mischievous as are some of the junior, 

1 have never represented the worst of them as capable of 
inflicting such atrocity. Passionate and capricious and unjust 
are several of them ; but a skin stript off the shoulder, and 

u2 



292 LTJCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

a liver tost to a vulture, are among the worst of their 
inflictions. 



This is scoffing. 



TIMOTHEUS. 



b' 



LUCIAN. 

Nobody but an honest man has a right to scoff at 
anything, 

TIMOTHEUS. 

And yet people of a very different cast are usually those 
who scoff the most. 

LUCIAN. 

We are apt to push forward at that which we are without : 
the low-born at titles and distinctions, the silly at wit, the 
knave at the semblance of probity. But I was about to remark, 
that an honest man may fairly scoff at all philosophies and 
religions which are proud, ambitious, intemperate, and contra- 
dictory. The thing most adverse to the spirit and essence of 
them all, is falsehood. It is the business of the philosophical 
to seek truth : it is the office of the religious to worship her • 
under what name, is unimportant. The falsehood that the 
tongue commits is slight in comparison with what is conceived 
by the heart, and executed by the whole man, throughout life. 
If, professing love and charity to the human race at large, I 
quarrel day after day with my next neighbour ; if, professing 
that the rich can never see God, I spend in the luxuries of my 
household a talent monthly ; if, professing to place so much 
confidence in his word, that, in regard to worldly weal, I need 
take no care for to-morrow, I accumulate stores even beyond 
what would be necessary, though I quite distrusted both his 
providence and his veracity; if, professing that "he who 
giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord," I question the Lord's 
security, and haggle with him about the amount of the loan ; 
if, professing that I am their steward, I keep ninety-nine parts 
in the hundred as the emolument of my stewardship ; how, 
when God hates liars and punishes defrauders, shall I, and 
other such thieves and hypocrites, fare hereafter ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Let us hope there are few of them. 

LUCIAN. 

We can not hope against what is : we may however hope 
that in future these will be fewer ; but never while the over- 
seers of a priesthood look for offices out of it, taking the 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 293 

lead in politics, in debate, and strife. Such men bring to 
ruin all religion, but their own first, and raise unbelievers not 
only in divine providence, but in human faith. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

If they leave the altar for the market-place, the sanctuary 
for the senate-house, and agitate party questions instead of 
Christian verities, everlasting punishments await them. 

LUCIAN. 

Everlasting ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Certainly : at the very least. I rank it next to heresy in 
the catalogue of sins ; and the church supports my opinion. 

LUCIAN. 

I have no measure for ascertaining the distance between the 
opinions and practices of men : I only know that they stand 
widely apart in all countries on the most important occasions : 
but this newly-hatched word heresy, alighting on my ear, 
makes me rub it. A beneficent God descends on earth in the 
human form, to redeem us from the slavery of sin, from the 
penalty of our passions : can you imagine he will punish an 
error in opinion, or even an obstinacy in unbelief, with ever- 
lasting torments ? Supposing it highly criminal to refuse to 
weigh a string of arguments, or to cross-question a herd of 
witnesses, on a subject which no experience hath warranted and 
no sagacity can comprehend; supposing it highly criminal to 
be contented with the religion which our parents taught us, 
which they bequeathed to us as the most precious of possessions, 
and which it would have broken their hearts if they had 
foreseen we should cast aside ; yet are eternal pains the just 
retribution of what at worst is but indifference and supine- 
ness ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Our religion has clearly this advantage over yours : it teaches 
us to regulate our passions. 

LUCIAX. 

Rather say it tells us. I believe all religions do the same ; 
some indeed more emphatically and primarily than others ; but 
that indeed would be incontestably of divine origin, and 
acknowledged at once by the most sceptical, which should 
thoroughly teach it. IN ow, my friend Timotheus, I think you 
are about seventy-five years of age. 



29i LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Nigh upon it. 

LUCIAN. 

Seventy-five years,, according to my calculation, are equivalent 
to seventy-five gods and goddesses in regulating our passions 
for us, if we speak of the amatory, which are always thought 
in every stage of life the least to be pardoned. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Execrable ! 

LUCIAN. 

I am afraid the sourest hang longest on the tree. Mimnermus 
says,* 

In early youth we often sigh 
Because our pulses beat so high ; 
All this we conquer, and at last 
We sigh that we are grown so chaste. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Swine ! 

LUCIAN. 

No animal sighs oftener or louder. But, my dear cousin, 
the quiet swine is less troublesome and less odious than the 
grumbling and growling and fierce hyaena, which will not let 
the dead rest in their graves. We may be merry with the 
follies and even the vices of men, without doing or wishing 
them harm : punishment should come from the magistrate, 
not from us. If we are to give pain to anyone because he 
thinks differently from us, we ought to begin by inflicting a 
few smart stripes on ourselves ; for both upon light and upon 
grave occasions, if we have thought much and often, our 
opinions must have varied. We are always fond of seizing 
and managing what appertains to others. In the savage state 
all belongs to all. Our neighbours the Arabs, who stand 
between barbarism and civilisation, waylay travelers, and 
plunder their equipage and their gold. The wilier marauders 
in Alexandria start up from under the shadow of temples, 
force us to change our habiliments for theirs, and strangle 
us with fingers dipt in holy water if we say they sit 
uneasily. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

This is not the right view of tilings. 

* Query, where ? 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 295 



That is never the right view which lets in too much light. 
About two centuries have elapsed since your religion was 
founded. Show me the pride it has humbled • show me the 
cruelty it has mitigated ; show me the lust it has extinguished 
or repressed. I have now been living ten years in Alexandria ; 
and you never will accuse me, I think, of any undue partiality 
for the system in which I was educated: yet, from all my 
observation, I find no priest or elder, in your community, wise, 
tranquil, firm, and sedate, as Epicurus, and Carneades, and 
Zeno, and Epictetus ; or indeed in the same degree as 
some who were often called forth into political and military 
life ; Epaminondas, for instance, and Phocion. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I pity them from my soul : they were ignorant of the 
truth : they are lost, my cousin ! take my word for it, they are 
lost men. 

LUCIAN. 

Unhappily, they are. I wish we had them back again ; or 
that, since we have lost them, we could at least find among us 
the virtues they left for our example. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Alas, my poor cousin ! you too are blind : you do not 
understand the plainest words, nor comprehend those verities 
which are the most evident and palpable. Virtues ! if the 
poor wretches had any, they were false ones. 

LUCIAN. 

Scarcely ever has there been a politician, in any free state, 
without much falsehood and duplicity. I have named the 
most illustrious exceptions. Slender and irregular lines of a 
darker colour run along the bright blade that decides the fate 
of nations, and may indeed be necessary to the perfection of 
its temper. The great warrior hath usually his darker lines of 
character, necessary (it may be) to constitute his greatness. 
No two men possess the same quantity of the same virtues, 
if they have many or much. We want some which do not 
far outstep us, and which we may follow with the hope of 
reaching; we want others to elevate, and others to defend us. 
The order of things would be less beautiful without this variety. 
Without the ebb and flow of our passions, but guided and 
moderated by a beneficent light above, the ocean of life would 



296 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

stagnate; and zeal, devotion, eloquence, would become dead 
carcases, collapsing and wasting on unprofitable sands. The 
vices of some men cause the virtues of others, as corruption 
is the parent of fertility. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

my cousin ! this doctrine is diabolical. 

LUCIAN. 

What is it ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Diabolical : a strong expression in daily use among us. 
We turn it a little from its origin. 

LUCIAN. 

Timotheus, I love to sit by the side of a clear water, 
although there is nothing in it but naked stones. Do not 
take the trouble to muddy the stream of language for my 
benefit : I am not about to fish in it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Well ; we will speak about things which come nearer to 
your apprehension. I only wish you were somewhat less 
indifferent in your choice between the true and the false. 

LUCIAN. 

We take it for granted that what is not true must be 
false. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Surely we do. 

LUCIAN. 

This is erroneous. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Are you grown captious ? Pray explain. 

LUCIAN. 

What is not true, I need not say, must be untrue : but 
that alone is false which is intended to deceive. A witness 
may be mistaken, yet you would not call him a false witness 
unless he asserted what he knew to be false. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Quibbles upon words ! 

LUCIAN. 

On words, on quibbles, if you please to call distinctions so, 
rests the axis of the intellectual world. A winged word hath 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 297 

stuck ineradicably in a million hearts, and envenomed every 
hour throughout their hard pulsation : on a winged word 
hath hung the destiny of nations : on a winged word hath 
human wisdom been willing to cast the immortal soul, and to 
leave it dependent for all its future happiness. It is because 
a word is unsusceptible of explanation, or because they who 
employed it were impatient of any, that enormous evils have 
prevailed, not only against our common sense, but against our 
common humanity. Hence the most pernicious of absurdities, 
far exceeding in folly and mischief the worship of three-score 
gods; namely, that an implicit faith in what outrages our 
reason, which we know is God's gift and bestowed on us for 
our guidance, that this weak, blind, stupid faith is surer of his 
favour than the constant practice of every human virtue. They 
at whose hands one prodigious lie, such as this, hath been 
accepted, may reckon on their influence in the dissemination 
of many smaller, and may turn them easily to their own 
account. Be sure they will do it sooner or later. The fly 
floats on the surface for a while, but up springs the fish at last 
and swallows it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Was ever man so unjust as you are ? The abominable old 
priesthoods are avaricious and luxurious : ours is willing to 
stand or fall by maintaining its ordinances of fellowship and 
frugality. Point out to me a priest of our religion whom you 
could, by any temptation or entreaty, so far mislead, that he 
shall reserve for his own consumption one loaf, one plate of 
lentils, while another poor Christian hungers. In the mean- 
while the priests of Isis are proud and wealthy, and admit 
none of the indigent to their tables. And now, to tell you 
the whole truth, my cousin Lucian, I come to you this morning 
to propose that we should lay our heads together and contrive 
a merry dialogue" on these said priests of Isis. What say you? 

LUCIAN. 

These said priests of Isis have already been with me, several 
times, on a similar business in regard to yours. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Malicious wretches ! What slyness ! what perfidy ! 

LUCIAN. 

Beside, they have attempted to persuade me that your 
religion is borrowed from theirs, altering a name a little, and 



298 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

laying the scene of action in a corner, in the midst of obscurity 
and ruins. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

The wicked dogs ! the hellish liars ! We have nothing in 
common with such vile impostors. Are they not ashamed of 
taking such unfair means of lowering us in the estimation of 
our fellow-citizens ? And so, they artfully came to you, 
craving any spare jibe to throw against us ! They lie open to 
these weapons : we do not : we stand above the malignity, 
above the strength, of man. You would do justly in turning 
their own devices against them : it would be amusing to see 
how they would look. If you refuse me, I am resolved to 
write a Dialogue of the Dead, myself, and to introduce these 
hypocrites in it. 

LUCIAN. 

Consider well first, my good Timotheus, whether you can 
do any such thing with propriety; I mean to say judiciously 
in regard to composition. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I always thought you generous and open-hearted, and quite 
inaccessible to jealousy. 

LUCIAN. 

Let nobody ever profess himself so much as that : for, 
although he may be insensible of the disease, it lurks within 
him, and only waits its season to break out. But really, my 
cousin, at present I feel no symptoms : and, to prove that I 
am ingenuous and sincere with you, these are my reasons for 
dissuasion. We believers in the Homeric family of gods and 
goddesses, believe also in the locality of Tartarus and Elysium. 
We entertain no doubt whatever, that the passions of men 
and demigods and gods, are nearly the same above-ground 
and below; and that Achilles would dispatch his spear 
through the body of any shade who would lead Briseis too far 
among the myrtles, or attempt to throw the halter over the 
ears of any chariot-horse belonging to him in the meads of 
asphodel. We admit no doubt of these verities, delivered 
down to us from the ages when Theseus and Hercules had 
descended into Hades itself. Instead of a few stadions in a 
cavern, with a bank and a bower at the end of it, under a very 
small portion of our diminutive Hellas, you Christians possess 
the whole cavity of the earth for punishment, and the whole 
convex of the sky for felicity. 



LL'CIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 299 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Our passions are burnt out amid the fires of purification, 
and our intellects are elevated to the enjoyment of perfect 
intelligence. 

LUGIAK. 

How silly then and incongruous would it be, not to say 
how impious, to represent your people as no better and no 
wiser than they were before, and discoursing on subjects which 
no longer can or ought to concern them. Christians must 
think your Dialogue of the Bead no less irreligious than their 
opponents think mine, and infinitely more absurd. If indeed 
you are resolved on this form of composition, there is no topic 
which may not, with equal facility, be discussed on earth; and 
you may intersperse as much ridicule as you please, without 
any fear of censure for inconsistency or irreverence. Hitherto 
such writers have confined their view mostly to speculative 
points, sophistic reasonings, and sarcastic interpellations. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Ha ! you are always fond of throwing a little pebble at the 
lofty Plato, whom we, on the contrary, are ready to receive (in 
a manner) as one of ourselves. 

LUCIA>". 

To throw pebbles is a very uncertain way of showing where 
lie defects. VThenever I have mentioned him seriously, I 
have brought forward, not accusations, but passages from his 
writings, such as no philosopher or scholar, or moralist, can 
defend. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

His doctrines are too abstruse and too sublime for you. 

LUCIAX. 

Solon, Anaxagoras, and Epicurus, are more sublime, if truth 
is sublimity. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Truth is indeed; for God is truth. 

LUCIA>'. 

"We are upon earth to learn what can be learnt upon earth, 
and not to speculate on what never can be. This you, 
Timotheus, may call philosophy : to me it appears the idlest 
of curiosity; for every other kind may teach us something, 
and mav lead to more beyond. Let men learn what benefits 



300 LUCIAN AUD TIMOTHEUS. 

men ; above all things, to contract their wishes, to calm their 
passions, and, more especially, to dispell their fears. Now 
these are to be dispelled, not by collecting clouds, but by 
piercing and scattering them. In the dark Ave may imagine 
depths and highths immeasurable, which, if a torch be carried 
right before us, we find it easy to leap across. Much of what 
we call sublime is only the residue of infancy, and the worst 
of it. 

The philosophers I quoted are too capacious for schools and 
systems. Without noise, without ostentation, without mystery, 
not quarrelsome, not captious, not frivolous, their lives were 
commentaries on their doctrines. Never evaporating into 
mist, never stagnating into mire, their limpid and broad 
morality runs parallel with the lofty summits of their genius. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Genius ! was ever genius like Plato's ? 

LUCIAN. 

The most admired of his Dialogues, his Banquet, is beset 
with such puerilities, deformed with such pedantry, and 
disgraced with such impurity, that none but the thickest 
beards, and chiefly of the philosophers and the satyrs, should 
bend over it. On a former occasion he has given us a 
specimen of history, than which nothing in our language is 
worse : here he gives us one of poetry, in honour of Love, 
for which the god has taken ample vengeance on him, by 
perverting his taste and feelings. The grossest of all the 
absurdities in this dialogue is, attributing to Aristophanes, so 
much of a scoffer and so little of a visionary, the silly notion 
of male and female having been originally complete in one 
person, and walking circuitously. He may be joking : who 
knows ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Porbear ! forbear ! do not call this notion a silly one : he 
took it from our Holy Scriptures, but perverted it' somewhat. 
Woman was made from man's rib, and did not require to be 
cut asunder all the way down : this is no proof of bad 
reasoning, but merely of misinterpretation. 

LUCIAN. 

If you would rather have bad reasoning, I will adduce a 
little of it. Partner on, he wishes to extoll the wisdom of 
Agathon by attributing to him such a sentence as this. 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 301 

w It is evident that Love is the most beautiful of the gods, 
because he is the youngest of them/' 

Now even on earth, the youngest is not always the most 
beautiful; how infinitely less cogent then is the argument 
when we come to speak of the Immortals, with whom age can 
have no concern ! There was a time when Yulcan was the 
youngest of the gods : was he also, at that time, and for that 
reason, the most beautiful ? Your philosopher tells us, more- 
over, that "Love is of all deities the most liquid; else he 
never could fold himself about everything, and flow into and 
out of men's souls." 

The three last sentences of Agathon's rhapsody are very 
harmonious, and exhibit the finest specimen of Plato's style ; 
but we, accustomed as we are to hear him lauded for his 
poetical diction, should hold that poem a very indifferent one 
which left on the mind so superficial an impression. The 
garden of Academus is flowery without fragrance, and dazzling 
without warmth : I am ready to dream away an hour in it 
after dinner, but I think it unsalutary for a night's repose. 
So satisfied was Plato with his Banquet, that he says of himself, 
in the person of Socrates, " How can I or anyone but find it 
difficult to speak after a discourse so eloquent? It would 
have been wonderful if the brilliancy of the sentences at the 
end of it, and the choice of expression throughout, had not 
astonished all the auditors. I, who can never say anything 
nearly so beautiful, would if possible have made my escape, 
and have fairly run off for shame." He had indeed much 
better run off before he made so wretched a pun on the name 
of Gorgias. " I dreaded," says he, " lest Agathon, measuring 
my discourse by the head of the eloquent Gorgias, should turn 
me to stone for inability of utterance." 

Was there ever joke more frigid ? What painful twisting 
of unelastic stuff! If Socrates was the wisest man in the 
world, it would require another oracle to persuade us, after 
this, that he was the wittiest. But surely a small share of 
common sense would have made him abstain from hazarding 
such failures. He falls on his face in very flat and very dry 
ground ; and, when he gets up again, his quibbles are well- 
nigh as tedious as his witticisms. However, he has the 
presence of mind to throw them on the shoulders of Diotima, 
whom he calls a prophetess, and who, ten years before the 
Plague broke out in Athens, obtained from the gods (he tells 



302 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

us) that delay. Ah ! the gods were doubly mischievous : they 
sent her first. Read her words, my cousin, as delivered by 
Socrates ; and if they have another Plague in store for us, you 
may avert it by such an act of expiation. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

The world will have ended before ten years are over. 

LUCIAN. 

Indeed ! 

TIMOTHECS. 

It has been pronounced. 

LUCIAN. 

How the threads of belief and unbelief run woven close 
together in the whole web of human life ! Come, come ; take 
courage ; you will have time for your Dialogue. Enlarge the 
circle ; enrich it with a variety of matter, enliven it with a 
multitude of characters, occupy the intellect of the thoughtful, 
the imagination of the lively; spread the board with solid 
viands, delicate rarities, and sparkling wines; and throw, 
along the whole extent of it, geniality and festal crowns. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

What writer of dialogues hath ever done this, or undertaken, 
or conceived, or hoped it ? 

LUCIAN. 

None whatever; yet surely you yourself may, when even 
your babes and sucklings are endowed with abilities incom- 
parably greater than our niggardly old gods have bestowed on 
the very best of us. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I wish, my dear Lucian, you would let our babes and 
sucklings lie quiet, and say no more about them : as for your 
gods, I leave them at your mercy. Do not impose on me the 
performance of a task in which Plato himself, if he had 
attempted it, would have failed. 

LUCIAN. 

No man ever detected false reasoning with more quickness; 
but unluckily he called in Wit at the exposure ; and Wit, I 
am sorry to say, held the lowest place in his household. He 
sadly mistook the qualities of his mind in attempting the 
facetious : or rather, he fancied he possessed one quality more 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 303 

than belonged to him. But, if he himself had not been a 
worse quibbler than any whose writings are come down to us, 
we might have been gratified by the exposure of wonderful 
acuteness wretchedly applied. It is no small service to the 
community to turn into ridicule the grave impostors, who are 
contending which of them shall guide and govern us, whether 
in politics or religion. There are always a few who will take 
the trouble to walk down among the sea- weeds and slippery 
stones, for the sake of showing their credulous fellow-citizens 
that skins filled with sand, and set upright at the forecastle, 
are neither men nor merchandise. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I can bring to mind, Lucian, no writer possessing so 
great a variety of wit as you. 

LUCIAN. 

No man ever possessed any variety of this gift ; and the 
holder is not allowed to exchange the quality for another. 
Banter (and such is Plato's) never grows large, never sheds 
its bristles, and never do they soften into the humorous or the 
facetious. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I agree with you that banter is the worst species of wit. 
We have indeed no correct idea what persons those really were 
whom Plato drags by the ears, to undergo slow torture under 
Socrates. One sophist, I must allow, is precisely like another : 
no discrimination of character, none of manner, none of 
language. 

LUCIAN. 

He wanted the fancy and fertility of Aristophanes. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Otherwise, his mind was more elevated and more poetical. 

LUCIAN. 

Pardon me if I venture to express my dissent in both 
particulars. Knowledge of the human heart, and discrimina- 
tion of character, are requisites of the poet. Pew ever have 
possessed them in an equal degree with Aristophanes : Plato 
has given no indication of either. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

But consider his imagination. 



304 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

LUCIAN. 

On what does it rest ? He is nowhere so imaginative as in 
his Tolity. Nor is there any state in the world that is, or 
would be, governed by it. One day you may find him at his 
counter in the midst of old-fashioned toys, which crack and 
crumble under his fingers while he exhibits and recommends 
them : another day, while he is sitting on a goat's bladder, I 
may discover his bald head surmounting an enormous mass of 
loose chaff and uncleanly feathers, which he would persuade 
you is the pleasantest and healthiest of beds, and that dreams 
descend on it from the gods. 

" Open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what Zeus shall send you/' 

says Aristophanes in his favourite metre. In this helpless 
condition of closed optics and hanging jaw, we find the 
followers of Plato. It is by shutting their eyes that they see, 
and by opening their mouths that they apprehend. Like 
certain broad-muzzled dogs, all stand equally stiff and staunch, 
although few scent the game, and their lips wag and water 
at whatever distance from the net. We must leave them with 
their hands hanging down before them, confident that they are 
wiser than we are, were it only for this attitude of humility. 
It is amusing to see them in it before the tall well-robed 
Athenian, while he mis-spells the charms and plays clumsily 
the tricks he acquired from the conjurors here in Egypt. I 
wish you better success with the same materials. But in my 
opinion all philosophers should speak clearly, The highest 
things are the purest and brightest ; and the best writers 
are those who render them the most intelligible to the world 
below. In the arts and sciences, and particularly in music 
and metaphysics, this is difficult: but the subjects not being 
such as lie within the range of the community, I lay little 
stress upon them, and wish authors to deal with them as they 
best may, only beseeching that they recompense us, by bring- 
ing within our comprehension the other things with which 
they are intrusted for us. The followers of Plato fly off 
indignantly from any such proposal. If I ask them the 
meaning of some obscure passage, they answer that I am 
unprepared and unfitted for it, and that his mind is so far 
above mine, I can not grasp it. I look up into the faces of 
these worthy men, who mingle so much commiseration with so 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 305 

much calmness, and wonder at seeing them look no less vacant 
than my own. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Yon have acknowledged his eloquence, while you derided 
his philosophy and repudiated his morals. 

LUCIAN. 

Certainly, there was never so much eloquence with so little 
animation. When he has heated his oven, he forgets to put 
the bread into it ; instead of which, he throws in another 
bundle of faggots. His words and sentences are often too 
large for the place they occupy. If a water-melon is not to 
be placed in an oyster-shell, neither is a grain of millet in a 
golden salver. At high festivals a full band may enter; 
ordinary conversation goes on better without it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

There is something so spiritual about him, that many of us 
Christians are firmly of opinion he must have been partially 
enlightened from above. 

LUCIAN. 

I hope and believe we all are. His entire works are in our 
library : do me the favour to point out to me a few of those 
passages where in poetry he approaches the spirit of 
Aristophanes, or where in morals he comes up to Epictetus. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

It is useless to attempt it if you carry your prejudices with 
you. Beside, my dear cousin, I would not offend you, but 
really your mind has no point about it which could be brought 
to contact or affinity with Plato's. 

LUCTAN. 

In the universality of his genius there must surely be some 
atom coincident with another in mine. You acknowledge, as 
everybody must do, that his wit is the heaviest and lowest : 
pray, is the specimen he has given us of history at all better ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I would rather look to the loftiness of his mind, and the 
genius that sustains him. 

LUCIAN. 

So would I. Magnificent words, and the pomp and pro- 
cession of stately sentences, may accompany genius, but are 



306 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

not always nor frequently called out by it. The voice ought 
not to be perpetually nor much elevated in the ethic and 
didactic, nor to roll sonorously, as if it issued from a mask in 
the theater. The horses in the plain under Troy are not 
always kicking and neighing ; nor is the dust always raised 
in whirlwinds on the banks of Simois and Scamander; nor 
are the rampires always in a blaze. Hector has lowered his 
helmet to the infant of Andromache, and Achilles to the 
embraces of Briseis. I do not blame the prose-writer who 
opens his bosom occasionally to a breath of poetry ; neither 
on the contrary can I praise the gait of that pedestrian who 
lifts up his legs as high on a bare heath as in a corn-field. Be 
authority as old and obstinate as it may, never let it persuade 
you that a man is the stronger for being unable to keep himself 
on the ground, or the weaker for breathing quietly and softly 
on ordinary occasions. Tell me over and over that you find 
every great quality in Plato : let me only once ask you in 
return, whether he ever is ardent and energetic, whether he 
wins the affections, whether he agitates the heart. Finding 
him deficient in every one of these faculties, I think his 
disciples have extolled him too highly. Where power is 
absent, we may find the robes of genius, but we miss the 
throne. He would acquit a slave who killed another in self- 
defence, but if he killed any free man even in self-defence, he 
was not only to be punished with death, but to undergo the 
cruel death of a parricide. This effeminate philosopher was 
more severe than the manly Demosthenes, who quotes a law 
against the striking of a slave ; and Diogenes, when one ran 
away from him, remarked that it would be horrible if Diogenes 
could not do without a slave, when a slave could do without 
Diogenes. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Surely the allegories of Plato are evidences of his genius. 

LUCIAN. 

A great poet in the hours of his idleness may indulge in 
allegory : but the highest poetical character will never rest on 
so unsubstantial a foundation. The poet must take man from 
God's hands, must look into every fibre of his heart and brain, 
must be able to take the magnificent work to pieces, and to 
reconstruct it. When this labour is completed, let him throw 
himself composedly on the earth, and care little how many of 
its ephemeral insects creep over him. In regard to these 



6 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 807 

allegories of Plato, about which I have heard so much, pray 
what and where are they ? You hesitate, my fair cousin 
Timotheus ! Employ one morning in transcribing them, and 
another in noting all the passages which are of practical utility 
in the commerce of social life, or purify our affections at home, 
or excite and elevate our enthusiasm in the prosperity and 
glory of our country. Useful books, moral books, instructive 
books, are easily composed : and surely so great a writer 
should present them to us without blot or blemish : I find 
among his many volumes no copy of a similar composition. 
My enthusiasm is not easily raised indeed ; yet such a whirl- 
wind of a poet must carry it away with him ; nevertheless, 
here I stand, calm and collected, not a hair of my beard in 
commotion. Declamation will find its echo in vacant places : 
it beats ineffectually on the well-furnished mind. Give me 
proof; bring the work; show the passages; convince, con- 
found, overwhelm me. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I may do that another time with Plato. And yet, what 
effect can I hope to produce on an unhappy man who doubts 
even that the world is on the point of extinction ? 

LTJCIAN. 

Are there many of your association who believe that this 
catastrophe is so near at hand ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We all believe it ; or rather, we all are certain of it. 

LUCIAN. 

How so ? Have you observed any fracture in the disk of 
the sun ? Are any of the stars loosened in their orbits ? Has 
the beautiful light of Yenus ceased to pant in the heavens, or 
has the belt of Orion lost its gems ! 

TIMOTHEUS. 

for shame ! 

LUCIAN. 

Rather should I be ashamed of indifference on so important 
an occasion. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We know the fact by surer signs. 

LUCIAN. 

These, if you could vouch for them, would be sure enough 

x2 



308 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

for me. The least of tliem would make me sweat as profusely 
as if I stood up to the neck in the hot preparation of a 
mummy. Surely no wise or benevolent philosopher could ever 
have uttered what he knew or believed might be distorted into 
any such interpretation. For if men are persuaded that they 
and their works are so soon about to perish, what provident 
care are they likely to take in the education and welfare of 
their families ? What sciences will they improve, what learn- 
ing will they cultivate, what monuments of past ages will 
they be studious to preserve, who are certain that there can 
be no future ones ? Poetry will be censured as rank profane- 
ness, eloquence will be converted into howls and execrations, 
statuary will exhibit only Miclases and Ixions, and all the 
colours of painting will be mixed together to produce one 
grand conflagration : flammantia mcenia mundi. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Do not quote an atheist ; especially in latin. I hate the 
language : the Romans are beginning to differ from us already. 

LUCIAN. 

Ah ! you will soon split into smaller fractions. But pardon 
me my unusual fault of quoting. Before I let fall a quotation 
I must be taken by surprise. I seldom do it in conversation, 
seldomer in composition ; for it mars the beauty and unity of 
style, especially when it invades it from a foren tongue. A 
quoter is either ostentatious of his acquirements or doubtful 
of his cause. And moreover, he never walks gracefully who 
leans upon the shoulder of another, however gracefully that 
other may walk. Herodotus, Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes, 
are no quoters. Thucydides, twice or thrice, inserts a few 
sentences of Pericles : but Thucydides is an emanation of 
Pericles, somewhat less clear indeed, being lower, although at 
no great distance from that purest and most pellucid source. 
The best of the Romans, I agree with you, are remote from 
such originals, if not in power of mind, or in acuteness of 
remark, or in sobriety of judgment, yet in the graces of 
composition. While I admired, with a species of awe such as 
not Homer himself ever impressed me with, the majesty and 
sanctimony of Livy, I have been informed by learned Romans 
that in the structure of his sentences he is often inharmonious, 
and sometimes uncouth. I can imagine such uncouthness in 
the goddess of battles, confident of power and victory, when 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 309 

part of her hair is waving round the helmet, loosened by the 
rapidity of her descent or the vibration of her spear. Com- 
position may be too adorned even for beauty. In painting it 
is often requisite to cover a bright colour with one less bright ; 
and in language to relieve the ear from the tension of high 
notes, even at the cost of a discord. There are urns of which 
the borders are too prominent and too decorated for use, and 
which appear to be brought out chiefly for state, at grand 
carousals. The author who imitates the artificers of these, 
shall never have my custom. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I think you judge rightly : but I do not understand 
languages ; I only understand religion. 

LUCIAN. 

He must be a most accomplished, a most extraordinary 
man, who comprehends them both together. We do not 
even talk clearly when we are walking in the dark. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Thou art not merely walking in the dark, but fast asleep. 

LUCIAN. 

And thou, my cousin, wouldst kindly awaken me with a 
red-hot poker. I have but a few paces to go along the 
corridor of life : prythee let me turn into my bed again and 
lie quiet. Never was any man less an enemy to religion than 
I am, whatever may be said to the contrary : and you shall 
judge of me by the soundness of my advice. If your leaders 
are in earnest, as many think, do persuade them to abstain 
from quarrelsomeness and contention, and not to declare it 
necessary that there should perpetually be a religious as well 
as a political war between east and west. No honest and 
considerate man will believe in their doctrines, who, incul- 
cating peace and good-will, continue all the time to assail their 
fellow- citizens with the utmost rancour at every divergency 
of opinion, and, forbidding the indulgence of the kindlier 
affections, exercise at full stretch the fiercer. This is certain : 
if they obey any commander, they will never sound a charge 
when his order is to sound a retreat : if they acknowledge any 
magistrate, they will never tear down the tablet of his edicts. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We have what is all-sufficient. 



310 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

LUCIAN. 

I see you have. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You have ridiculed all religion and all philosophy. 

LUCIAN. 

I have found but little of either. I have cracked many a 
nut, and have come only to dust or maggots. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

To say nothing of the saints, are all philosophers fools or 
impostors ? And, because you can not rise to the ethereal 
highths of Plato, nor comprehend the real magnitude of a 
man so much above you, must he be a dwarf ? 

LUCIAN. 

The best sight is not that which sees best in the dark or 
the twilight ; for no objects are then visible in their true 
colours and just proportions ; but it is that which presents to 
us things as they are, and indicates what is within our reach 
and what is beyond it. Never were any three writers, of high 
celebrity, so little understood in the main character, as Plato, 
Diogenes, and Epicurus. Plato is a perfect master of logic 
and rhetoric ; and whenever he errs in either, as I have proved 
to you he does occasionally, he errs through perverseness, not 
through un wariness. His language often settles into clear 
and most beautiful prose, often takes an imperfect and 
incoherent shape of poetry, and often, cloud against cloud, 
bursts with a vehement detonation in the air. Diogenes was 
hated both by the vulgar and the philosophers. By the 
philosophers, because he exposed their ignorance, ridiculed 
their jealousies, and rebuked their pride : by the vulgar, 
because they never can endure a man apparently of their own 
class who avoids their society and partakes in none of their 
humours, prejudices, and animosities. What right has he to 
be greater or better than they are? he who wears older 
clothes, who eats staler fish, and possesses no vote to imprison 
or banish anybody. I am now ashamed that I mingled in the 
rabble, and that I could not resist the childish mischief of 
smoking him in his tub. He was the wisest man of his time, 
not excepting Aristoteles ; for he knew that he was greater 
than Philip or Alexander. Aristoteles did not know that he 
himself was, or, knowing it, did not act up to his knowledge ; 
and here is a deficiency of wisdom. 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 311 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Whether you did or did not strike the cask, Diogenes would 
have closed his eyes equally. He would never have come 
forth and seen the truth, had it shone upon the world in that 
day. But, intractable as was this recluse, Epicurus I fear is 
quite as lamentable. What horrible doctrines ! 

LUCIAN. 

Enjoy, said he, the pleasant walks where you are : repose, 
and eat gratefully the fruit that falls into your bosom : do not 
weary your feet with an excursion, at the end whereof you will 
find no resting-place : reject not the odour of roses for the 
fumes of pitch and sulphur. What horrible doctrines ! 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Speak seriously. He was much too bad for ridicule. 

LUCIAN. 

I will then speak as you desire me, seriously. His smile 
was so unaffected and so graceful, that I should have thought 
it very injudicious to set my laugh against it. No philosopher 
ever lived with such uniform purity, such abstinence from 
censoriousness, from controversy, from jealousy, and from 
arrogance, 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Ah poor mortal ! I pity him, as far as may be ; he is in 
hell : it would be wicked to wish him out : we are not to 
murmur against the all- wise dispensations. 

LUCIAN. 

I am sure he would not ; and it is therefor I hope he is 
more comfortable than you believe. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Never have I defiled my fingers, and never will I defile 
them, by turning over his writings. But in regard to Plato, I 
can have no objection to take your advice. 

LUCIAN. 

He will reward your assiduity : but he will assist you very 
little if you consult him principally (and eloquence for this 
should principally be consulted) to strengthen your humanity. 
Grandiloquent and sonorous, his lungs seem to play the better 
for the absence of the heart. His imagination is the most 
conspicuous, buoyed up by swelling billows over unsounded 
depths. There are his mild thunders, there are his glowing 



312 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

clouds, his traversing coruscations, and his shooting stars. 
More of true wisdom, more of trustworthy manliness, more of 
promptitude and power to keep you steddy and straightforward 
on the perilous road of life, may be found in the little manual 
of Epictetus, which I could write in the palm of my left-hand, 
than there is in all the rolling and redundant volumes of this 
mighty rhetorician, which you may begin to transcribe on the 
summit of the great Pyramid, carry down over the Sphynx at 
the bottom, and continue on the sands half-way to Memphis. 
And indeed the materials are appropriate ; one part being far 
above our sight, and the other on what, by the most befitting 
epithet, Homer calls the no-corn-bearing. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

There are many who will stand against you on this ground. 



With what perfect ease and fluency do some of the dullest 
men in existence toss over and discuss the most elaborate of 
all works ! How many myriads of such creatures would be 
insufficient to furnish intellect enough for any single paragraph 
in them ! Yet ' we think this, 3 ( we advise that 3 are expres- 
sions now become so customary, that it would be difficult to 
turn them into ridicule. We must pull the creatures out 
while they are in the very act, and show who and what they 
are. One of these fellows said to Caius Fuscus in my hearing, 
that there was a time when it was permitted him to doubt 
occasionally on particular points of criticism, but that the time 
was now over. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

And what did you think of such arrogance ? What did 
you reply to such impertinence ? 

LUCIAN. 

Let me answer one question at a time. Krst : I thought 
him a legitimate fool, of the purest breed. Secondly: I 
promised him I would always be contented with the judgment 
he had rejected, leaving him and his friends in the enjoyment 
of the rest. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

And what said he ? 

LUCIAN. 

I forget. He seemed pleased at my acknowledgment of his 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 313 

discrimination, at my deference and delicacy. He wished, 
however, I had studied Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero, more 
attentively; without which preparatory discipline, no two 
persons could be introduced advantageously into a dialogue. 
I agreed with him on this position, remarking that we our- 
selves were at that very time giving our sentence on the fact. 
He suggested a slight mistake on my side, and expressed a 
wish that he were conversing with a writer able to sustain the 
opposite part. "With his experience and skill in rhetoric, his 
long habitude of composition, his knowledge of life, of morals, 
and of character, he should be less verbose than Cicero, less 
gorgeous than Plato, and less trimly attired than Xenophon. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

If he spoke in that manner, he might indeed be ridiculed 
for conceitedness and presumption, but his language is not 
altogether a fooFs. 

LUCIAN. 

I deliver his sentiments, not his words : for who would 
read, or who would listen to me, if such fell from me as from 
him ? Poetry has its probabilities, so has prose : when people 
cry out against the representation of a dullard, Could he have 
spoken all that ? c Certainly no/ is the reply : neither did 
Priam implore, in harmonious verse, the pity of Achilles. We 
say only what might be said, when great postulates are 
conceded. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We will pretermit these absurd and silly men : but, cousin 
Lucian ! cousin Lucian ! the name of Plato will be durable as 
that of Sesostris. 

LUCIAN. 

So will the pebbles and bricks which gangs of slaves erected 
into a pyramid. ' 1 do not hold Sesostris in much higher estima- 
tion than those quieter lumps of matter. They, Timotheus, 
who survive the wreck of ages, are by no means, as a body, 
the worthiest of our admiration. It is in these wrecks, as in 
those at sea, the best things are not always saved. Hen-coops 
and empty barrels bob upon the surface, under a serene and 
smiling sky, when the graven or depicted images of the gods 
are scattered on invisible rocks, and when those who most 
resembled them in knowledge and beneficence are devoured by 
cold monsters below. 



314 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You now talk reasonably, seriously, almost religiously. Do 
you ever pray ? 

LUCIAN. 

I do. It was no longer than five years ago that I was 
deprived by death of my dog Melanops. He had uniformly 
led an innocent life ; for I never would let him walk out with 
me, lest he should bring home in his mouth the remnant of 
some god or other, and at last get bitten or stung by one. I 
reminded Anubis of this : and moreover I told him, what he 
ought to be aware of, that Melanops did honour to his 
relationship. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I can not ever call it piety to pray for dumb and dead 
beasts. 

LUCIAN. 

Timotheus ! Timotheus ! have you no heart ? have you no 
dog ? do yon always pray only for yourself ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We do not believe that dogs can live again. 

LUCIAN. 

More shame for you ! If they enjoy and suffer, if they 
hope and fear, if calamities and wrongs befall them such as 
agitate their hearts and excite their apprehensions; if they 
possess the option of being grateful or malicious, and choose 
the worthier : if they exercise the same sound judgment on 
many other occasions, some for their own benefit and some for 
the benefit of their masters ; they have as good a chance of a 
future life, and a better chance of a happy one, than half the 
priests of all the religions in the world. Wherever there is 
the choice of doing well or ill, and that choice (often against 
a first impulse) decides for well, there must not only be a soul 
of the same nature as man's, although of less compass and 
comprehension, but, being of the same nature, the same 
immortality must appertain to it \ for spirit, like body, may 
change, but can not be annihilated. 

It was among the prejudices of former times that pigs are 
uncleanly animals, and fond of wallowing in the mire for 
mire's sake. Philosophy has now discovered, that when they 
roll in mud and ordure, it is only from an excessive love of 
cleanliness, and a vehement desire to rid themselves of scabs 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 315 

and vermin. Unfortunately doubts keep pace with discoveries. 
They are like warts, of which the blood that springs from a 
great one extirpated, makes twenty little ones. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

The Hydra would be a more noble simily. 

LUCIAN. 

I was indeed about to illustrate my position by the old 
Hydra, so ready at hand and so tractable ; but I will never 
take hold of a hydra, when a wart will serve my turn, 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Continue then. 

LUCIAN. 

Even children are now taught, in despite of iEsop, that 
animals never spoke. The uttermost that can be advanced 
with any show of confidence is, that if they spoke at all, they 
spoke in unknown tongues. Supposing the fact, is this a 
reason why they should not be respected ? Quite the con- 
trary. If the tongues were unknown, it tends to demonstrate 
our ignorance, not theirs. If we could not understand them, 
while they possessed the gift, here is no proof that they did 
not speak to the purpose, but only that it was not to our 
purpose : which may likewise be said with equal certainty of 
the wisest men that ever existed. How^ little have we learned 
from them, for the conduct of life or the avoidance of calamity ! 
Unknown tongues indeed ! yes, so are all tongues to the 
vulgar and the negligent. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

It comforts me to hear you talk in this manner, without a 
glance at our gifts and privileges. 

LUCIAN. 

I am less incredulous than you suppose, my cousin ! 
Indeed I have been giving you what ought to be a sufficient 
proof of it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You have spoken at last with becoming gravity, I must 
confess. 

LUCIAN. 

Let me then submit to your judgment some fragments of 
history which have lately fallen into my hands. There is 
among them a Hymn, of which the metre is so incondite, and 



316 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

the phraseology so ancient, that the grammarians have attri- 
buted it to Linus. But the Hymn will interest you less, and 
is less to our purpose, than the tradition j by which it appears 
that certain priests of high antiquity were of the brute 
creation. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

No better, any of them. 

LUCIAN. 

Now you have polished the palms of your hands, I will 
commence my narrative from the manuscript. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Pray do. 

LUCIAN. 

There existed in the city of Nephosis a fraternity of priests, 
reverenced by the appellation of Gasteres. It is reported that 
they were not always of their present form, but were birds, 
aquatic and migratory, a species of cormorant. The poet 
Linus, who lived nearer the transformation (if there indeed 
was any), sings thus, in his Hymn to Zeus. 

" Thy power is manifest, Zeus ! in the Gasteres. Wild 
birds were they, strong of talon, clanging of wing, and 
clamourous of gullet. Wild birds, Zeus ! wild birds ; now 
cropping the tender grass by the river of Adonis, and breaking 
the nascent reed at the root, and depasturing the sweet 
nymphsea ; now again picking up serpents and other creeping 
things on each hand of old iEgyptos, whose head is hidden in 
the clouds. 

" that Mnemosyne would command the staidest of her 
three daughters to stand and sing before me ! to sing clearly 
and strongly. How before thy throne, Saturnian ! sharp 
voices arose, even the voices of Here and of thy children. 
How they cried out that innumerable mortal men, various- 
tongued, kid-roasters in tent and tabernacle, devising in their 
many-turning hearts and thoughtful minds how to fabricate 
well-rounded spits of beech-tree, how such men, having been 
changed into brute animals, it behoved thee to trim the 
balance, and in thy wisdom to change sundry brute animals 
into men ; in order that they might pour out flame-colored 
wine unto thee, and sprinkle the white flower of the sea upon 
the thighs of many bulls, to pleasure thee. Then didst thou, 
storm-driver ! overshadow far lands with thy dark eyebrows, 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 317 

looking down on them, to accomplish thy will. And then 
didst thou behold the Gasteres, fat, tall, prominent-crested, 
purple-legged, daedal-plumed, white and black, changeable in 
colour as Iris. And lo ! thou didst will it, and they were 
men/'' 

TIMOTHEUS. 

No doubt whatever can be entertained of this Hymn's 
antiquity. But what farther says the historian ? 



I will read on, to gratify you. 

" It is recorded that this ancient order of a most lordly 
priesthood went through many changes of customs and cere- 
monies, which indeed they were always ready to accommodate 
to the maintenance of their authority and the enjoyment of 
their riches. It is recorded that, in the beginning, they kept 
various tame animals, and some wild ones, within the precincts 
of the temple : nevertheless, after a time, they applied to their 
own uses everything they could lay their hands on, whatever 
might have been the vow of those who came forward with the 
offering. And when it was expected of them to make sacrifices, 
they not only would make none, but declared it an act of 
impiety to expect it. Some of the people, who feared the 
Immortals, were dismayed and indignant at this backwardness ; 
and the discontent at last grew universal. Whereupon, the 
two' chief priests held a long conference together, and agreed 
that something must be done to pacify the multitude. But 
it was not until the greater of them, acknowledging his 
despondency, called on the gods to answer for him that his 
grief was only because he never could abide bad precedents : 
and the other, on his side, protested that he was over-ruled by 
Ins superior, and moreover had a serious objection (founded on 
principle) to be knocked on the head. Meanwhile the 
elder was looking down on the folds of Ins robe, in deep 
melancholy. After long consideration, he sprang upon his 
feet, pushing his chair behind him, and said, c "Well ; it is 
grown old, and was always too long for me : I am resolved to 
cut off a finger's breadth/ 

u c Having, in your wisdom and piety, well contemplated 
the bad precedent/ said the other, with much consternation in 
Iris countenance at seeing so elastic a spring in a heel by no 
means bearing any resemblance to a stag's . . ' I have, I have/ 



318 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

replied the other, interrupting him ; ' say no more ; I am sick 
at heart ; you must do the same/ 

" i A cursed dog has torn a hole in mine/ answered the 
other, 'and, if I cut anywhere about it, I only make bad 
worse. In regard to its length, I wish it were as long again/ 
c Brother ! brother ! never be worldly-minded/ said the senior. 
c Follow my example : snip off it, not a finger's breadth, half a 
finger's breadth/ 

" c But/ expostulated the other, c will that satisfy the gods ? ' 
' Who talked about them ? ' placidly said the senior. ' It is 
very unbecoming to have them always in our mouths : surely 
there are appointed times for them. Let us be contented with 
laying the snippings on the altar, and thus showing the people 
our piety and condescension. They, and the gods also, will 
be just as well satisfied, as if we offered up a buttock of beef, 
with a bushel of salt, and the same quantity of wheaten flour 
on it/ 

" ' Well, if that will do . . and you know best/ replied the 
other, ' so be it/ Saying which words, he carefully and con- 
siderately snipped off as much in proportion (for he was 
shorter by an inch) as the elder had done, yet leaving on his 
shoulders quite enough of materials to make handsome cloaks 
for seven or eight stout-built generals. Away they both went, 
arm-in-arm, and then holding up their skirts a great deal 
higher than was necessary, told the gods what they two had 
been doing for them and their glory. About the court of the 
temple the sacred swine were lying in indolent composure : 
seeing which, the brotherly twain began to commune with 
themselves afresh : and the senior said repentantly, f What 
fools we have been ! The populace will laugh outright at the 
curtailment of our vestures, but would gladly have seen these 
animals eat daily a quarter less of the lentils/ The words 
were spoken so earnestly and emphatically that they were 
overheard by the quadrupeds. Suddenly there was a rising 
of all the principal ones in the sacred inclosure : and many 
that were in the streets took up, each according to his 
temperament and condition, the gravest or shrillest tone of 
reprobation. The thinner and therefor the more desperate of 
the creatures, pushing their snouts under the curtailed 
habiliments of the priests, assailed them with ridicule and 
reproach. For it had pleased the gods to work a miracle 
in their behoof, and they became as loquacious as those who 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 319 

governed them, and who were appointed to speak in the high 
places. c Let the worst come to the worst, we at least have 
our tails to our hams/ said they. ' For how long ? ' whined 
others piteously : others incessantly ejaculated tremendous 
imprecations : others, more serious and sedate, groaned in- 
wardly ; and, although under their hearts there lay a huge 
mass of indigestible sourness ready to rise up against the chief 
priests, they ventured no farther than expostulation. f We 
shall lose our voices/ said they, ' if we lose our complement of 
lentils ; and then, most reverend lords, what will ye do for 
choristers?' Finally, one of grand dimensions, who seemed 
almost half-human, imposed silence on every debater. He 
lay stretched out apart from his brethren, covering with his 
side the greater portion of a noble dunghill, and all its verdure 
native and imported. He crashed a few measures of peascods 
to cool his tusks ; then turned his pleasurable longitudinal 
eyes far toward the outer extremities of their sockets ; and 
leered fixedly and sarcastically at the high priests, showing 
every tooth in each jaw. Other men might have feared them ; 
the high priests envied them, seeing what order they were in, 
and what exploits they were capable of. A great painter, who 
flourished many olympiads ago, has, in his volume entitled the 
Canon, defined the line of beauty ! It was here in its per- 
fection : it followed with winning obsequiousness every 
member, but delighted more especially to swim along that 
placid and pliant curvature on which Nature had ranged the 
implements of mastication. Pawing with his cloven hoof, he 
suddenly changed his countenance from the contemplative to 
the wrathful. At one effort he rose up to his whole length, 
breadth, and highth : and they who had never seen him in 
earnest, nor separate from the common swine of the inclosure, 
with which he was in the habit of husking what was thrown 
to him, could form no idea what a prodigious beast he was. 
Terrible were the expressions of choler and comminations 
which burst forth from his fulminating tusks. Erimanthus 
would have hidden his puny offspring before them; and 
Hercules would have paused at the encounter. Thrice he 
called aloud to the high priests : thrice he swore in their own 
sacred language that they were a couple of thieves and 
impostors : thrice he imprecated the worst maledictions on his 
own head if they had not violated the holiest of their vou's, 
and were not ready even to sell their gods. A tremor ran 



320 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHETJS. 

throughout the whole body of the united swine ; so awful was 
the adjuration ! Even the Gasteres themselves in some sort 
shuddered, not perhaps altogether, at the solemn tone of its 
impiety ; for they had much experience in these matters. But 
among them was a Gaster who was calmer than the swearer, 
and more prudent and conciliating than those he swore against. 
Hearing this objurgation, he went blandly up to the sacred 
porker, and, lifting the flap of his right ear between forefinger 
and thumb with all delicacy and gentleness, thus whispered 
into it : ' You do not in your heart believe that any of us are 
such fools as to sell our gods, at least while we have such a 
reserve to fall back upon/ 

" ' Are we to be devoured ? ' cried the noble porker, 
twitching his ear indignantly from under the hand of the 
monitor. ' Hush ! ' said he, laying it again most soothingly 
rather farther from the tusks : 'hush ! sweet friend ! Devoured? 
O certainly not : that is to say, not all : or, if all, not all at 
once. Indeed the holy men my brethren may perhaps be 
contented with taking a little blood from each of you, entirely 
for the advantage of your health and activity, and merely to 
compose a few slender black-puddings for the inferior monsters 
of the temple, who latterly are grown very exacting, and either 
are, or pretend to be, hungry after they have eaten a whole 
handful of acorns, swallowing I am ashamed to say what a 
quantity of water to wash them down. We do not grudge 
them it, as they well know : but they appear to have forgotten 
how recently no inconsiderable portion of this bounty has been 
conferred. If we, as they object to us, eat more, they ought 
to be aware that it is by no means for our gratification, since 
we have abjured it before the gods, but to maintain the dignity 
of the priesthood, and to exhibit the beauty and utility of 
subordination/ 

" The noble porker had beaten time with his muscular tail 
at many of these periods ; but again his heart panted visibly, 
and he could bear no more. 

" ' All this for our good ! for our activity ! for our health ! 
Let us alone : we have health enough ; we want no activity. 
Let us alone, I say again, or by the Immortals ! . / ' Peace, 
my son ! Your breath is valuable : evidently you have but 
little to spare : and what mortal knows how soon the gods 
may demand the last of it ? ' 

"At the beginning of this exhortation, the worthy high 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 321 

priest had somewhat repressed the ebullient choler of his 
refractory and pertinacious disciple, by applying his flat soft 
palm to the signet-formed extremity of the snout. 

" ' We are ready to hear complaints at all times/ added he, 
'and to redress any grievance at our own. But beyond a 
doubt, if you continue to raise your abominable outcries, some 
of the people are likely to hit upon two discoveries : first, that 
your lentils w r ould be sufficient to make daily for every poor 
family a good wholesome porridge; and secondly, that your 
flesh, properly cured, might hang up nicely against the forth- 
coming bean-season/ Pondering these mighty words, the 
noble porker kept his eyes fixed upon him for some instants, 
then leaned forward dejectedly, then tucked one foot under 
him, then another, cautious to descend with dignity. At last 
he grunted (it must for ever be ambiguous whether with 
despondency or with resignation), pushed his wedgy snout far 
within the straw subjacent, and sank into that repose which is 
granted to the just/' 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Cousin ! there are glimmerings of truth and wisdom in 
sundry parts of this discourse, not unlike little broken shells 
entangled in dark masses of sea- weed. But I would rather 
you had continued to adduce fresh arguments to demonstrate 
the beneficence of the Deity, proving (if you could) that our 
horses and dogs, faithful servants and companions to us, and 
often treated cruelly, may recognise us hereafter, and we them. 
We have no authority for any such belief. 

LUCIAN. 

We have authority for thinking and doing whatever is 
humane. Speaking of humanity, it now occurs to me, I have 
heard a report that some well-intentioned men of your religion 
so interpret the .words or wishes of its founder, they would 
abolish slavery throughout the empire. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Such deductions have been drawn indeed from our Master's 
doctrine : but the saner part of us receive it metaphorically, 
and would only set men free from the bonds of sin. For if 
domestic slaves were manumitted, we should neither have a 
dinner drest nor a bed made, unless by our own children : 
and as to labour in the fields, who would cultivate them in 
this hot climate ? We must import slaves from ^Ethiopia and 



322 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

elsewhere, wheresoever they can be procured : but the hardship 
lies not on them; it lies on us, and bears heavily; for we 
must first buy them with our money, and then feed them ; and 
not only must we maintain them while they are hale and hearty 
and can serve us, but likewise in sickness and (unless we can 
sell them for a trifle) in decrepitude. Do not imagine, my 
cousin, that we are no better than enthusiasts, visionaries, 
subverters of order, and ready to roll society down into one 
flat surface. 

LUCIAN. 

I thought you were maligned : I said so. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

"When the subject was discussed in our congregation, the 
meaner part of the people were much in favour of the abolition : 
but the chief priests and ministers absented themselves, and 
gave no vote at all, deeming it secular, and saying that in such 
matters the laws and customs of the country ought to be 
observed. 

LUCIAN. 

Several of these chief priests and ministers are robed in 
purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I have hopes of you now. 

LUCIAN. 

Why so suddenly ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Because you have repeated those blessed words, which are 
only to be found in our scriptures. 

LUCIAN. 

There indeed I found them. But I also found in the same 
volume words of the same speaker, declaring that the rich 
shall never see his face in heaven. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

He does not always mean what you think he does. 

LUCIAN. 

How is this ? Did he then direct his discourse to none but 
men more intelligent than I am ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Unless he gave you understanding for the occasion, they 
might mislead you. 



LUCIAN AND T1M0THEUS. 323 

LUCIAN. 

Indeed ! 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Unquestionably. For instance, he tells us to take no heed 
of to-morrow: he tells us to share equally all our worldly 
goods : but we know that we can not be respected unless we 
bestow due care on our possessions, and that not only the 
vulgar but the well-educated esteem us in proportion to the 
gifts of fortune. 

LUCIAN. 

The eclectic philosophy is most flourishing among you 
Christians. You take whatever suits your appetites, and reject 
the rest. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

We are not half so rich as the priests of Isis. Give us 
their possessions ; and we will not sit idle as they do, but be 
able and ready to do incalculable good to our fellow r -creatures. 

LUCIAN. 

I have never seen great possessions excite to great alacrity. 
Usually they enfeeble the sympathies, and often overlie and 
smother them. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Our religion is founded less on sympathies than on miracles. 
Cousin ! you smile most when you ought to be most serious. 

LUCIAN. 

I was smiling at the thought of one whom I would recom- 
mend to your especial notice, as soon as you disinherit the 
priests of Isis. He may perhaps be refractory ; for he pretends 
(the knave !) to work miracles. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Impostor ! who is he ? 

LUCIAN. 

Aulus of Pelusium. Idle and dissolute, he never gained 
anything honestly but a scourging, if indeed he ever made, 
what he long merited, this acquisition. Unable to run into 
debt where he was known J he came over to Alexandria. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I know him : I know him well. Here, of his own accord, 
he has betaken himself to a new and regular life. 

t2 



324 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 



He will presently wear it out, or make it sit easier on his 
shoulders. My metaphor brings me to my story. Having 
nothing to carry with him beside an empty valise, he resolved 
on filling it with somewhat, however worthless, lest, seeing his 
utter destitution, and hopeless of payment, a receiver of lodgers 
should refuse to admit him into the hostelry. Accordingly, 
he went to a tailor's, and began to joke about his poverty. 
Nothing is more apt to bring people into good humour : for, 
if they are poor themselves, they enjoy the pleasure of dis- 
covering that others are no better off ; and, if not poor, there 
is the consciousness of superiority. 

" The favour I am about to ask of a man so wealthy and 
so liberal as you are," said Aulus, " is extremely small : you 
can materially serve me, without the slightest loss, hazard, or 
inconvenience. In a few words my valise is empty : and to 
some ears an empty valise is louder and more discordant than 
a bagpipe : I can not say I like the sound of it myself. Give 
me all the shreds and snippings you can spare me. They will 
feel like clothes ; not exactly so to me and my person, but to 
those who are inquisitive, and who may be importunate." 

The tailor laughed and distended both arms of Aulus with 
his munificence. Soon was the valise well filled and rammed 
down. Plenty of boys were in readiness to carry it to the 
boat. Aulus waved them off, looking at some angrily, at 
others suspiciously. Boarding the skiff, he lowered his 
treasure with care and caution, staggering a little at the weight, 
and shaking it gently on deck, with his ear against it : and 
then, finding all safe and compact, he sate on it; but as 
tenderly as a pullet on her first eggs. When he was landed, 
his care was even greater, and whoever came near him was 
warned off with loud vociferations. Anxiously as the other 
passengers were invited by the innkeepers to give their houses 
the preference, Aulus was importuned most : the others were 
only beset; he was borne off in triumphant captivity. He 
ordered a bed-room, and carried his valise with him : he 
ordered a bath, and carried with him his valise. He started 
up from the company at dinner, struck his forehead, and cried 
out, " Where is my valise ? " " We are honest men here : " 
replied the host. " You have left it, sir, in your chamber : 
where else indeed should you leave it ? " 

" Honesty is seated on your brow/' exclaimed Aulus : "but 



LUCIAN AXD TIMOTHEUS. 325 

there are few to be trusted in the world we live in. I now 
believe I can eat." And he gave a sure token of the belief 
that was in him, not without a start now and then and a finger 
at his ear, as if he heard somebody walking in the direction 
of his bed-chamber. IS T ow began Ins first miracle : for now he 
contrived to pick up, from time to time, a little money. In 
the presence of his host and fellow-lodgers, he threw a few 
obols, negligently and indifferently, among the beggars. 
"These poor creatures/'' said he, "know a new comer as 
well as the gnats do : in one half-hour I am half-ruined by 
them \ and this daily." 

Nearly a month had elapsed since his arrival, and no 
account of board and lodging had been delivered or called 
for. Suspicion at length arose in the host whether he really 
was rich. When another man's honesty is doubted, the 
doubter's is sometimes in jeopardy. The host was tempted to 
unsew the valise. To his amazement and horror he found 
only shreds within it. However, he was determined to be 
cautious, and to consult his wife, who, although a Christian 
like Aulus, and much edified by his discourses, might dissent 
from him in regard to a community of goods, at least in her 
own household, and might defy him to prove by any authority 
that the doctrine was meant for innkeepers. Aulus, on his 
return in the evening, found out that his valise had been 
opened. He hurried back, threw its contents into the canal, 
and, borrowing an old cloak, he tuckec? it up under his dress, 
and returned. Nobody had seen him enter or come back 
again, nor was it immediately that his host or hostess were 
willing to appear. But, after he had called them loudly for 
some time, they entered his apartment : and he thus addressed 
the woman. 

" O Eucharis ! no words are requisite to convince you (firm 
as you are in the faith) of eternal verities, however mysterious. 
But your unhappy husband has betrayed his incredulity in 
regard to the most awful. If my prayers, offered up in our 
holy temples all day long, have been heard, and that they have 
been heard I feel within me the blessed certainty, something 
miraculous has been vouchsafed for the conversion of this 
miserable sinner. Until the present hour, the valise before 
you was filled with precious relics from the apparel of saints 
and martyrs, fresh as when on them." " True, by Jove ! " 
said the husband to himself. "Within the present hour," 



326 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

continued Aulus, "they are united into one raiment, signifying 
our own union, our own restoration." 

He drew forth the cloak, and fell on his face. Eucharis 
fell also, and kissed the saintly head prostrate before her. 
The host's eyes were opened, and he bewailed his hardness of 
heart. Aulus is now occupied in strengthening his faith, not 
without an occasional support to the wife's : all three live 
together in unity. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

And do you make a joke even of this ? Will you never 
cease from the habitude ? 

LUCIAN. 

Too soon. The farther we descend into the vale of years, 
the fewer illusions accompany us : we have little inclination, 
little time, for jocularity and laughter. Light things are 
easily detached from us, and we shake off heavier as we can. 
Instead of levity, we are liable to moroseness : for always near 
the grave there are more briars than flowers, unless we plant 
them ourselves, or our friends supply them. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Thinking thus, do you continue to dissemble or to distort 
the truth ? The shreds are become a cable for the faithful. 
That they were miraculously turned into one entire garment 
who shall gainsay ? How many hath it already clothed with 
righteousness ? Happy men, casting their doubts away before 
it ! Who knows, cousin Lucian, but on some future day 
you yourself will invoke the merciful interposition of Aulus ! 



Possibly : for if ever I fall among thieves, nobody is likelier 
to be at the head of them. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Uncharitable man ! how suspicious ! how ungenerous ! how 
hardened in unbelief ! Reason is a bladder on which you may 
paddle like a child as you swim in summer waters : but, when 
the winds rise and the waves roughen, it slips from under you, 
and you sink ; yes, Lucian, you sink into a gulf whence 
you never can emerge. 

LUCIAN, 

I deem those the wisest who exert the soonest their own 
manly strength, now with the stream and now against it, 



LUCIAN AND T1M0THEUS. 327 

enjoying tlie exercise in fine weather, venturing out in foul, 
if need be, yet avoiding not only rocks and whirlpools, but 
also shallows. In such a light, my cousin, I look on your 
dispensations. I shut them out as we shut out winds blowing 
from the desert ; hot, debilitating, oppressive, laden with 
impalpable sands and pungent salts, and inflicting an incurable 
blindness. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Well, cousin Lucian ! I can bear all you say while you are 
not witty. Let me bid you farewell in this happy interval. 

LUCIAN. 

Is it not serious and sad, my cousin, that what the Deity 
hath willed to lie incomprehensible in his mysteries, we should 
fall upon with tooth and nail, and ferociously growl over, or 
ignorantly dissect ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Ho ! now you come to be serious and sad, there are hopes 
of you. Truth always begins or ends so. 

LUCIAN. 

Undoubtedly. But I think it more reverential to abstain 
from that which, with whatever effort, I should never under- 
stand. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You are lukewarm, my cousin, you are lukewarm. A most 
dangerous state. 

LUCIAN. 

For milk to continue in, not for men. I would not fain be 
frozen or scalded. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Alas ! you are blind, my sweet cousin ! 

LUCIAN. 

Well ; do not open my eyes with pincers, nor compose for 
them a collyrium of spurge. 

May not men eat and drink and talk together, and perform 
in relation one to another all the duties of social life, whose 
opinions are different on things immediately under their eyes ? 
If they can and do, surely they may as easily on things equally 
above the comprehension of each party. The wisest and most 
virtuous man in the whole extent of the Roman empire is 
Plutarch of Cheronsea : yet Plutarch holds a firm belief in the 
existence of I know not how many gods, every one of whom 



328 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

has committed notorious misdemeanours. The nearest to the 
Cheronaean in virtue and wisdom is Trajan, who holds all the 
gods dog-cheap. These two men are friends. If either of 
them were influenced by your religion, as inculcated and 
practised by the priesthood, he would be the enemy of the 
other, and wisdom and virtue would plead for the delinquent 
in vain. "When your religion had existed, as you tell us, 
about a century, Caius Csecilius,* of Novum Comum, was 
Proconsul in Bithynia. Trajan, the mildest and most equitable 
of mankind, desirous to remove from them, as far as might be, 
the hatred and invectives of those whose old religion was 
assailed by them, applied to Csecilius for information on their 
behaviour as good citizens. The reply of Cflecilius was 
favorable. Had Trajan applied to the most eminent and 
authoritative of the sect, they would certainly have brought 
into jeopardy all who differed in one tittle from any point of 
their doctrine or discipline. For the thorny and bitter aloe 
of dissension required less than a century to flower on the 
steps of your temple. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You are already half a Christian, in exposing to the w r orld 
the vanities both of philosophy and of power. 

LUCIAN. 

I have done no such thing : I have exposed the vanities of 
the philosophising and the powerful. Philosophy is admirable ; 
and Power may be glorious : the one conduces to truth, the 
other has nearly all the means of conferring peace and happi- 
ness, but it usually, and indeed almost always, takes a contrary 
direction. I have ridiculed the futility of speculative minds, 
only when they would pave the clouds instead of the streets. 
To see distant things better than near, is a certain proof of a 
defective sight. The people I have held in derision never 
turn their eyes to what they can see, but direct them con- 
tinually where nothing is to be seen. And this> by their 
disciples, is called the sublimity of speculation ! There is little 
merit acquired, or force exhibited, in blowing off a feather that 
would settle on my nose : and this is all I have done in regard 
to the philosophers : but I claim for myself the approbation of 
humanity, in having shown the true dimensions of the great. 
The highest of them are no higher than my tunic ; but they 

* The younger Pliny. 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 329 

are high enough to trample on the necks of those wretches who 
throw themselves on the ground before them. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Was Alexander of Macedon no higher ? 

LUCIAN. 

What region of the earth, what city, what theater, what 
library, what private study, hath he enlightened ? If you are 
silent, 1 may well be. It is neither my philosophy nor your 
religion which casts the blood and bones of men in their faces, 
and insists on the most reverence for those who have made the 
most unhappy. If the Romans scourged by the hands of 
children the schoolmaster who would have betrayed them, how 
greatly more deserving of flagellation, from the same quarter, 
are those hundreds of pedagogues who deliver up the intellects 
of youth to such immoral revelers and mad murderers ! They 
would punish a thirsty child for purloining a bunch of grapes 
from a vineyard, and the same men on the same day would 
insist on his reverence for the subverter of Tyre, the plunderer 
of Babylon, and the incendiary of Persepolis. And are these 
men teachers ? are these men philosophers ? are these men 
priests ? Of all the curses that ever afflicted the earth, I think 
Alexander was the worst. Never was he in so little mischief 
as when he was murdering his friends. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Yet he built this very city ; a noble and opulent one when 
Rome was of hurdles and rushes. 



He built it ? I wish, Timotheus, he had been as well 
employed as the stone-cutters or the plasterers. ]\ T o, no : the 
wisest of architects planned the most beautiful and commodious 
of cities, by which, under a rational government and equitable 
laws, Africa might have been civilised to the center, and the 
palm have extended her conquests through the remotest desert. 
Instead of which, a dozen of Macedonian thieves rifled a dying 
drunkard and murdered his children. In process of time, 
another drunkard reeled hitherward from Rome, made an easy 
mistake in mistaking a palace for a brothel, permitted a 
stripling boy to beat him soundly, and a serpent to receive the 
last caresses of his paramour. 

Shame upon historians and pedagogues for exciting the 



330 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

worst passions of youth by the display of such false glories ! 
If your religion hath any truth or influence, her professors will 
extinguish the promontory lights, which only allure to breakers. 
They will be assiduous in teaching the young and ardent that 
great abilities do not constitute great men, without the right 
and unremitting application of them; and that, in the sight of 
Humanity and Wisdom, it is better to erect one cottage than 
to demolish a hundred cities. Down to the present day we 
have been taught little else than falsehood. AYe have been 
told to do this thing and that : we have been told we shall be 
punished unless we do : but at the same time we are shown 
by the finger that prosperity and glory, and the esteem of all 
about us, rest upon other and very different foundations. 
Now, do the ears or the eyes seduce the most easily and lead 
the most directly to the heart? But both eyes and ears are 
won over, and alike are persuaded to corrupt us. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Cousin Lucian, I was leaving you with the strangest of all 
notions in my head. I began to think for a moment that you 
doubted my sincerity in the religion I profess; and that a 
man of your admirable good sense, and at your advanced age, 
could reject that only sustenance which supports us through 
the grave into eternal life. 

LUCIAN. 

I am the most docile and practicable of men, and never 
reject what people set before me : for if it is bread, it is good 
for my own use ; if bone or bran, it will do for my dog or 
mule. But, although you know my weakness and facility, it 
is unfair to expect I should have admitted at once what the 
followers and personal friends of your Master for a long time 
hesitated to receive. I remember to have read in one of the 
early commentators, that his disciples themselves* could not 
swallow the miracle of the loaves ; and one who wrote more 
recently says, that even his brethren did not believe t in him. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Yet finally, when they have looked over each other's accounts, 
they cast them up, and make them all tally in the main sum ; 
and if one omits an article, the next supplies its place with a 
commodity of the same value. What would you have ? But 
it is of little use to argue on religion with a man who, pro- 

* Marie vi. t John viL 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 331 

fessing his readiness to believe, and even his credulity, yet 
disbelieves in miracles. 

LUCIAN. 

I should be obstinate and perverse if I disbelieved in the 
existence of a tiling for no better reason than because I never 
saw it, and can not understand its operations. Do you 
believe, O Tiniotheus, that Perictione, the mother of Plato, 
became his mother by the sole agency of Apollo's divine 
spirit, under the phantasm of that god ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

I indeed believe such absurdities ? 

LUCIAN. 

You touch me on a vital part if you call an absurdity the 
religion or philosophy in which I was educated. Anaxalides, 
and Clearagus, and Speusippus, his own nephew, assert it. 
Who should know better than they ? 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Where are their proofs ? 

LUCIAN. 

I would not be so indelicate as to require them on such an 
occasion. A short time ago 1 conversed with an old centurion, 
who was in service by the side of Vespasian, when Titus, and 
many officers and soldiers of the army, and many captives, 
were present, and who saw one Eleazar put a ring to the nostril 
of a demoniac (as the patient was called) and draw the demon 
out of it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

And do you pretend to believe this nonsense ? 

LUCIAN. 

I only believe that Yespasian and Titus had nothing to gain 
or accomplish, by the miracle ; and that Eleazar, if he had 
been detected in a trick by two acute men and several 
thousand enemies, had nothing to look forward to but a cross; 
the only piece of upholstery for which Judea seems to have 
either wood or workmen, and which are as common in that 
country as direction-posts are in any other. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

The Jews are a stiff-necked people. 

LUCIAN. 

On such occasions, no doubt. 



332 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Would you, Lucian, be classed among the atheists, like 
Epicurus ? 

LUCIAN. 

It lies not at my discretion what name shall be given me at 
present or hereafter, any more than it did at my birth. But 
I wonder at the ignorance and precipitancy of those who call 
Epicurus an atheist. He saw on the same earth with himself a 
great variety of inferior creatures, some possessing more sensi- 
bility and more thoughtfulness than others. Analogy would 
lead so contemplative a reasoner to the conclusion, that if 
many were inferior and in sight, others might be superior and 
out of sight. He never disbelieved in the existence of the gods; 
he only disbelieved that they troubled their heads with our 
concerns. Have they none of their own ? If they are happy, 
does their happiness depend on us, comparatively so imbecile 
and vile ? He believed, as nearly all nations do, in different 
ranks and orders of superhuman beings : and perhaps he 
thought (but I never was in his confidence or counsels) that 
the higher were rather in communication with the next to 
them in intellectual faculties, than with the most remote. To 
me the suggestion appears by no means irrational, that, if we 
are managed or cared for at all, by beings wiser than ourselves 
(which in truth would be no sign of any great wisdom in 
them), it can only be by such as are very far from perfection, 
and who indulge us in the commission of innumerable faults 
and follies, for their own speculation or amusement. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

There is only one such ; and he is the Devil. 

LUCIAN. 

If he delights in our wickedness, which you believe, he must 
be incomparably the happiest of beings, which you do not 
believe. No god of Epicurus rests his elbow on his arm- 
chair with less energetic exertion or discomposure. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

"We lead holier and purer lives than such ignorant mortals 
as are not living under Grace, 

LUCIAN, 

I also live under Grace, O Timotheus ! and I venerate her 
for the pleasures I have received at her hands. I do not 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 333 

believe she has quite deserted me. If my grey hairs are 
unattractive to her, and if the trace of her fingers is lost in 
the wrinkles of my forehead, stil I sometimes am told it is 
discernible even on the latest and coldest of my writings. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You are wilful in misapprehension. The Grace of which I 
speak is adverse to pleasure and impurity. 

LUCIAN. 

Rightly do you separate impurity and pleasure, which 
indeed soon fly asunder when the improvident would unite 
them. But never believe that tenderness of heart signifies 
corruption of morals, if you happen to find it (which indeed 
is unlikely) in the direction you have taken : on the contrary, 
no two qualities are oftener found together, on mind as on 
matter, than hardness and lubricity. 

Believe me, cousin Timotheus, when we come to eighty 
years of age we are all Essenes, In our kingdom of heaven 
there is no marrying or giving in marriage ; and austerity in 
ourselves, when Nature holds over us the sharp instrument 
with which Jupiter operated on Saturn, makes us austere to 
others. But how happens it that you, both old and young, 
break every bond which connected you anciently with the 
Essenes ? Not only do you marry (a highth of wisdom to 
which I never have attained, although in others I commend 
it), .but you never share your substance with the poorest of 
your community, as they did, nor live simply and frugally, 
nor refuse rank and offices in the state, nor abstain from 
litigation, nor abominate and execrate the wounds and cruelties 
of war. The Essenes did all this, and greatly more, if Josephus 
and Philo, whose political and religious tenets are opposite to 
theirs, are credible and trust-worthy. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Doubtless you would also wish us to retire into the desert, 
and eschew the conversation of mankind. 

LUCIAN. 

No indeed; but I would wish the greater part of your 
people to eschew mine, for they bring all the worst of the 
desert with them wherever they enter ; its smothering heats, 
its blinding sands, its sweeping suffocation. "Return to the 
pure spirit of the Essenes, without their asceticism; cease 
from controversy, and drop party designations. If you will 



334 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

not do this, do less, and be merely what you profess to be, 
which is quite enough for an honest, a virtuous, and a religious 
man. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Cousin Lucian, I did not come hither to receive a lecture 
from you. 

LUCIAN. 

I have often given a dinner to a friend who did not come to 
dine with me. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Then, I trust, you gave him something better for dinner 
than bay-salt and dandelions. If you will not assist us in 
nettling our enemies a little for their absurdities and impositions, 
let me intreat you however to let us alone, and to make no 
remarks on us, I myself run into no extravagances, like the 
Essenes, washing and fasting, and roaming into solitude. I 
am not called to them: when I am, I go. 

LUCIAN. 

I am apprehensive the Lord may afflict you with deafness 
in that ear. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Nevertheless, I am indifferent to the world, and all things 
in it. This, I trust, you will acknowledge to be true religion 
and true philosophy. 

LUCIAN. 

That is not philosophy which betrays an indifference to those 
for whose benefit philosophy was designed ; and those are the 
whole human race. But I hold it to be the most unphiloso- 
phical thing in the world, to call away men from useful 
occupations and mutual help, to profitless speculations and 
acrid controversies. Censurable enough, and contemptible 
too, is that supercilious philosopher, sneeringly sedate, who 
narrates in full and flowing periods the persecutions and tor- 
tures of a fellow man, led astray by his credulity, and ready to 
die in the assertion of what in his soul he believes to be the 
truth. But hardly less censurable, hardly less contemptible, 
is the tranquilly arrogant sectarian, who denies that wisdom or 
honesty can exist beyond the limits of his own ill-lighted 
chamber. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

What ! is he sanguinary ? 



LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 335 



Whenever he can be, he is : and he always has it in his 
power to be even worse than that : for he refuses his custom 
to the industrious and honest shopkeeper who has been taught 
to think differently from himself, in matters which he has had 
no leisure to study, and by which, if he had enjoyed that 
leisure, he would have been a less industrious and a less expert 
artificer. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

"We can not countenance those hard-hearted men who refuse 
to hear the word of the Lord. 

LUCIAN. 

The hard-hearted knowing this of the tender-hearted, and 
receiving the declaration from their own lips, will refuse to 
hear the word of the Lord all their lives. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Well, well ; it can not be helped. I see, cousin, my hopes 
of obtaining a little of your assistance in your own pleasant 
way are disappointed : but it is* something to have conceived a 
better hope of saving your soul, from your readiness to 
acknowledge your belief in miracles. 

LUCIAN. 

Miracles have existed in all ages and in all religions. "Wit- 
nesses to some of them have been numerous; to others of 
them fewer. Occasionally the witnesses have been disinterested 
in the result. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Now indeed you speak truly and wisely. 

LUCIAN. 

But sometimes the most honest and the most quiescent 
have either been unable or unwilling to push themselves 
so forward as to see clearly and distinctly the whole of the 
operation • and have listened to some knave who felt a 
pleasure in deluding their credulity, or some other who himself 
was either an enthusiast or a dupe. It also may have 
happened in the ancient religions, of Egypt for instance, or of 
India., or even of Greece, that narratives have been attributed 
to authors who never heard of them ; and have been circulated 
by honest men who firmly believed them ; by half- honest, who 
indulged their vanity in becoming members of a novel and 
bustling society; and by utterly dishonest, who, having no 



336 LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS. 

other means of rising above the shoulders of the vulgar, threw 
dust into their eyes and made them stoop. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Ha ! the rogues ! It is nearly all over with them. 

LUCIAN. 

Let us hope so. Parthenius and the Roman poet Ovidius 
Naso, have related the transformations of sundry men, women, 
and gods. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

Idleness ! Idleness ! I never read such lying authors. 

LUCIAN. 

I myself have seen enough to incline me toward a belief in 
them. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

You ? "Why ! you have always been thought an utter 
infidel ; and now you are running, hot and heedless as any 
mad dog, to the opposite extreme ! 

LUCIAN. 

I have lived to see, not indeed one man, but certainly one 
animal turned into another : nay, great numbers. I have seen 
sheep with the most placid faces in the morning, one nibbling 
the tender herb with all its dew upon it ; another, negligent of 
its own sustenance, and giving it copiously to the tottering 
lamb aside it. 

TIMOTHEUS. 

How pretty ! half-poetical ! 

LUCIAN. 

In the heat of the day I saw the very same sheep tearing off 
each other's fleeces with long teeth and longer claws, and 
imitating so admirably the howl of wolves, that at last the 
wolves came down on them in a body, and lent their best 
assistance at the general devouring. What is more remarkable, 
the people of the villages seemed to enjoy the sport; and, 
instead of attacking the wolves, waited until they had filled 
their stomachs, ate the little that was left, said piously and 
from the bottom of their hearts what you call grace, and went 
home singing and piping. 



MARCELLUS AND HANNIBAL. 337 



MARCELLUS AND HANNIBAL. 



HANNIBAL. 

Could a Numidian horseman ride no faster ? Marcellus ! 
ho ! Marcellus ! He moves not . . he is dead. Did he not 
stir his fingers ? Stand wide, soldiers . . wide, forty paces 
. . give him air . . bring water . . halt ! Gather those 
broad leaves, and all the rest, growing under the brushwood 
. . unbrace his armour. Loose the helmet first . . his breast 
rises. I fancied his eyes were fixed on me . . they have 
rolled back again. Who presumed to touch my shoulder ? 
This horse ? It was surely the horse of Marcellus ! Let no 
man mount him. Ha ! ha ! the Romans too sink into luxury : 
here is gold about the charger. 

GAULISH CHIEFTAIN. 

Execrable thief ! The golden chain of our king under a 
beast's grinders ! The vengeance of the gods hath overtaken 
the impure . . . 

HANNIBAL. 

We will talk about vengeance when we have entered Rome, 
and about purity among the priests, if they will hear us. 
Sound for the surgeon. That arrow may be extracted from the 
side, deep as it is . . . The conqueror of Syracuse lies before 
me . . . Send a vessel off to Carthage. Say Hannibal is at the 
gates of Rome . . . Marcellus, who stood alone between us, 
fallen. Brave man ! I would rejoice and can not . . . How 
awfully serene a countenance ! Such as we hear are in the 
ilands of the Blessed. And how glorious a form and stature ! 
Such too was theirs ! They also once lay thus upon the earth 
wet with their blood . . few other enter there. And what 
plain armour ! 

GAULISH CHIEFTAIN. 

My party slew him . . indeed I think I slew him myself. 
I claim the chain : it belongs to my king : the "glory of Gaul 
requires it. Never will she endure to see another take k it : 
rather would she lose her last man. We swear ! we swear ! 



& 



338 MARCELLUS AND HANNIBAL. 

HANNIBAL. 

My friend, the glory of Marcellus did not require him to 
wear it. When he suspended the arms of your brave king in 
the temple, he thought such a trinket unworthy of himself and 
of Jupiter. The shield he battered down, the breast-plate he 
pierced with his sword, these he showed to the people and to 
the gods ; hardly his wife and little children saw this, ere his 
horse wore it. 

GAULISH CHIEFTAIN. 

Hear me, Hannibal ! 

HANNIBAL. 

What ! when Marcellus lies before me ? when his life may 
perhaps be recalled ? when I may lead him in triumph to 
Carthage ? when Italy, Sicily, Greece, Asia, wait to obey me ? 
Content thee ! I will give thee mine own bridle, worth ten 
such. 

GAULISH CHIEFTAIN. 

Tor myself ? 

HANNIBAL. 

For thyself. 

GAULISH CHIEFTAIN. 

And these rubies and emeralds and that scarlet . . 

HANNIBAL. 

Yes, yes. 

GAULISH CHIEFTAIN. 

glorious Hannibal ! unconquerable hero ! my happy 
country ! to have such an ally and defender. I swear eternal 
gratitude . . yes, gratitude, love, devotion, beyond eternity. 

HANNIBAL. 

In all treaties we fix the time : I could hardly ask a longer. 
Go back to thy station . . I would see what the surgeon is 
about, and hear what he thinks. The life of Marcellus ! the 
triumph of Hannibal ! what else has the world in it ? only 
Rome and Carthage : these follow. 

SURGEON. 

Hardly an hour of life is left. 

MARCELLUS. 

1 must die then ! The gods be praised ! The commander 
of a Roman army is no captive. 



MJLRCELLUS AND HANNIBAL. 339 

HANNIBAL (TO THE SURGEON). 

Coiild not he bear a sea-voyage ? Extract the arrow. 

SURGEON. 

He expires that moment. 

MARCELLUS. 

It pains me : extract it. 

HANNIBAL. 

Marcellus, I see no expression of pain on your countenance 
and never will I consent to hasten the death of an enemv in 
my power. Since your recovery is hopeless, you say truly you 
are no captive. 

(To the Surgeon) Is there nothing, man, that can assuage 
the mortal pain ? for, suppress the signs of it as he may, he 
must feel it. Is there nothing to alleviate and allay it ? 

MAECELLUS. 

Hannibal, give me thy hand . . thou hast found it and 
brought it me, compassion. 

(To the Surgeon.) Go, friend; others want thy aid ; several 
fell around me. 

HANNIBAL. 

Becomrnend to your country, Marcellus, while time 
permits it, reconciliation and peace with me, informing the 
Senate of my superiority in force, and the impossibility of 
resistance. The tablet is ready : let me take off this ring . . 
try to write, to sign it at least. ! what satisfaction I feel at 
seeing you able to rest upon the elbow, and even to smile ! 

MARCELLUS. 

Within an hour or less, with how severe a brow would 
Minos say to me, "Marcellus, is this thy writing?" 

Borne loses one man : she hath lost many such, and she 
stil hath many left. 

HANNIBAL. 

Afraid as you are of falsehood, say you this ? I confess in 
shame the ferocity of my countrymen. Unfortunately too the 
nearer posts are occupied by Gauls, infinitely more cruel. 
The Xumidians are so in revenge ; the Gauls both in revenge 
and in sport. My presence is required at a distance, and I 
apprehend the barbarity of one or other, learning, as they 
must do, your refusal to execute my wishes for the common 

z 2 



340 MAECELLTJS AND HANNIBAL. 

good, and feeling that by this refusal you deprive them of their 
country, after so long an absence. 

MARCELLUS. 

Hannibal, thou art not dying. 

HANNIBAL. 

What then ? What mean you ? 

MARCELLUS. 

That thou mayest, and very justly, have many things yet to 
apprehend : I can have none. The barbarity of thy soldiers is 
nothing to me : mine would not dare be cruel. Hannibal is 
forced to be absent; and his authority goes away with his 
horse. On this turf lies defaced the semblance of a general ; 
but Marcellus is yet the regulator of his army. Dost thou 
abdicate a power conferred on thee by thy nation ? Or wouldst 
thou acknowledge it to have become, by thy own sole fault, 
less plenary than thy adversary's ? 

I have spoken too much : let me rest : thij mantle oppresses 
me. 

HANNIBAL. 

I placed my mantle on your head when the helmet was first 
removed, and while you were lying in the sun. Let me fold it 
under, and then replace the ring. 

MARCELLUS. 

Take it, Hannibal. It was given me by a poor woman who 
flew to me at Syracuse, and who covered it with her hair, torn 
off in desperation that she had no other gift to offer. Little 
thought I that her gift and her words should be mine. How 
suddenly may the most powerful be in the situation of the 
most helpless ! Let that ring and the mantle under my head 
be the exchange of guests at parting. The time may come, 
Hannibal, when thou (and the gods alone know whether as 
conqueror or conquered) mayest sit under the roof of my 
children, and in either case it shall serve thee. In thy adverse 
fortune, they will remember on whose pillow their father 
breathed his last; in thy prosperous (heaven grant it may 
shine upon thee in some other country) it will rejoice thee to 
protect them. We feel ourselves the most exempt from 
affliction when we relieve it, although we are then the most 
conscious that it may befall us. 



MAECELLUS AND HANNIBAL. 341 

There is one thing here which is not at the disposal of 
either. 

HANNIBAL. 

What ? 

MARCELLUS. 

This body. 

HANNIBAL. 

Whither would you be lifted ? Men are ready. 

MARCELLUS. 

I meant not so. My strength is failing. I seem to hear 
rather what is within than what is without. My sight and my 
other senses are in confusion. I would have said, This body, 
when a few bubbles of air shall have left it, is no more worthy 
of thy notice than of mine ; but thy glory will not let thee 
refuse it to the piety of my family. 

HANNIBAL. 

You would ask something else. I perceive an inquietude 
not visible til now. 

MARCELLCJS. 

Duty and Death make us think of home sometimes. 

HANNIBAL. 

Thitherward the thoughts of the conqueror and of the 
conquered fly together. 

MARCELLUS. 

Hast thou any prisoners from my escort ? 

HANNIBAL. 

A few dying lie about . . and let them lie . . they are 
Tuscans. The remainder I saw at a distance, flying, and but 
. one brave man among them . . he appeared a Roman . . a 
youth who turried back, though wounded. They surrounded 
and dragged him away, spurring his horse with their swords. 
These Etrurians measure their courage carefully, and tack it 
well together before they put it on, but throw it off again with 
lordly ease. 

Marcellus, why think about them? or does aught else 
disquiet your thoughts ? 

MARCELLUS. 

I have suppressed it long enough. My son . . my beloved 
son ! 



342 P. SCIFIO JEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

HANNIBAL. 

Where is he ? Can it be ? Was he with you ? 

MARCELLUS. 

He would have shared my fate . . and has not. Gods of 
my country ! beneficent throughout life to me, in death surpass- 
ingly beneficent, I render you, for the last time, thanks. 



P. SCIPIO ^EMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PAN^ETIUS. 



SCIPIO. 

Polybius, if you have found me slow in rising to you, if I 
lifted not up my eyes to salute you on your entrance, do not 
hold me ungrateful . . proud there is no danger that you will 
ever call me : this day of all days would least make me so : it 
shows me the power of the immortal gods, the mutability of 
fortune, the instability of empire, the feebleness, the nothing- 
ness of man. The earth stands motionless ; the grass upon it 
bends and returns, the same to-day as yesterday, the same in 
this age as in a hundred past : the sky darkens and is serene 
again; the clouds melt away, but they are clouds another time, 
and float like triumphal pageants along the heavens. Carthage 
is fallen ! to rise no more ! the funereal horns have this hour 
announced to us, that, after eighteen days and eighteen nights 
of conflagration, her last embers are extinguished. 

POLYBIUS. 

Perhaps, iEmilianus, I ought not to have come in. 

SCIPIO. 

Welcome, my friend. 

POLYBIUS. 

While you were speaking I would by no means interrupt 
you so idly, as to ask you to whom you have been proud, or to 
whom could you be ungrateful. 

SCIPIO. 

To him, if to any, whose hand is in mine ; to him on whose 
shoulder I rest my head, weary with presages and vigils. 
Collect my thoughts for me, my friend ! the fall of Carthage 



p. scipio tEmilianus, polybius, panotitis. 343 

hath shaken and scattered them. There are moments when, 
if we are quite contented with ourselves, we never can remount 
to what we were before. 

POLYBIUS. 

Pansetius is absent. 

SCIPIO. 

Feeling the necessity, at the moment, of utter loneliness, I 
despatched him toward the city. There may be (yes ; even 
there) some sufferings which the senate would not censure us 
for assuaging. But behold he returns ! We were speaking 
of you, Pansetius ! 

PAN2ETIUS. 

And about what beside ? Come, honestly tell me, Polybius, 
on what are you reflecting and meditating with such sedately 
intense enthusiasm ? 

POLTBIUS. 

After the burning of some village, or the overleaping of 
some garden-wall, to exterminate a few pirates or highwaymen, 
I have seen the commander's tent thronged with officers ; I 
have heard as many trumpets around him as would have shaken 
down the places of themselves • I have seen the horses start 
from the pretorium, as if they would fly from under their 
trappings, and spurred as if they were to reach the east and 
west before sunset, that nations might hear of the exploit, and 
sleep soundly. And now do I behold in solitude, almost in 
gloom, and in such silence that, unless my voice prevents it, 
the grasshopper is audible, him who has levelled to the earth 
the strongest and most populous of cities, the wealthiest and 
most formidable of empires. I had seen Rome ; I had seen 
(what those who never saw never will see) Carthage ; I thought 
I had seen Scipio : it was but the image of him : here I find 
him. 

SCIPIO. 

There are many hearts that ache this day : there are many 
that never will ache more : hath one man done it ? one man's 
breath ? What air, upon the earth, or upon the waters, or in 
the void of heaven, is lost so quickly ! it flies away at the 
point of an arrow, and returns no more ! the sea-foam stifles 
it ! the tooth of a reptile stops it ! a noxious leaf suppresses it. 
What are we in our greatness ? whence rises it ? whither 
tends it ? 

Merciful gods ! may not Some be what Carthage is ? may 



344 P. SCIPIO ^MILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

not those who love her devotedly, those who will look on her 
with fondness and affection after life, see her in such condition 
as to wish she were so ? 

POLTBIUS. 

One of the heaviest groans over fallen Carthage, burst from 
the breast of Scipio : who would believe this tale ? 



Men like my Polybius : others must never hear it. 

POLTBIUS. 

You have not ridden forth, JEmilianus, to survey the ruins. 

SCIPIO. 

No, Polybius : since I removed my tent to avoid the heat 
from the conflagration, I never have ridden nor walked nor 
looked toward them. At this elevation, and three miles off, 
the temperature of the season is altered. I do not believe, as 
those about me would have persuaded me, that the gods were 
visible in the clouds ; that thrones of ebony and gold were 
scattered in all directions ; that broken chariots and flaming 
steeds, and brazen bridges, had cast their fragments upon the 
earth ; that eagles and lions, dolphins and tridents, and other 
emblems of power and empire, were visible at one moment, and 
at the next had vanished ; that purple and scarlet overspread 
the mansions of the gods • that their voices were heard at first 
confusedly and discordantly; and that the apparition closed 
with their high festivals. I could not keep my eyes on the 
heavens : a crash of arch or of theater or of tower, a column of 
flame rising higher than they were, or a universal cry, as if 
none until then had perished, drew them thitherward. Such 
were the dismal sights and sounds, a fresh city seemed to have 
been taken every hour, for seventeen days. This is the 
nineteenth since the smoke arose from the level roofs and from 
the lofty temples, and thousands died, and tens of thousands 
ran in search of death. 

Calamity moves me; heroism moves me more. That a 
nation whose avarice we have so often reprehended, should 
have cast into the furnace gold and silver, from the insufficiency 
of brass and iron for arms ; that palaces the most magnificent 
should have been demolished by the proprietor for their beams 
and rafters, in order to build a fleet against us ; that the ropes 
whereby the slaves hauled them down to the new harbour, 



P. SCIPIO iEMIUANTJS, POLYBIUS, PA>\ETIUS. 315 

should in part be composed of hair, for one lock of which 
kings would have laid down their diadems; that Asdrubal 
should have found equals, his wife none . . my mind ; my very 
limbs, are unsteddy with admiration. 

Liberty ! what art thou to the valiant and brave, when 
thou art thus to the weak and timid ! dearer than life, 
stronger than death, higher than purest love. Never will I 
call upon thee where thy name can be profaned, and never 
shall my soul acknowledge a more exalted Power than thee. 

PASJBHUS. 

The Carthaginians and Moors have, beyond other nations, 
a delicate feeling on female chastity. Rather than that their 
women should become slaves and concubines, they slay them : 
is it certain that Asdrubal did not observe, or cause to be 
observed, the custom of his country ? 

PGLYBirS. 

Certain : on the surrender of his army his wife threw herself 
and her two infants into the flames. Xot only memorable 
acts, of what the dastardly will call desperation, were performed, 
but some also of deliberate and signal justice. Avaricious as 
we called the people, and unjustly, as you have proved, 
JEmilianus, I will relate what I myself was witness to. 

In a part of the city where the fire had subsided, we were 
excited by loud cries, rather of indignation, we thought, than 
of such as fear or lament or threaten or exhort ; and we 
pressed forward to disperse the multitude. Our 1 horses often 
plunged in the soft dust, and in the holes whence the 
pavement had been removed for missiles, and often reared 
up and snorted violently at smells which we could not 
perceive, but which we discovered to rise from bodies, 
mutilated and half-burnt, of soldiers and horses, laid bare, 
some partly, some wholly, by the march of the troop. 
Although the distance from the place whence we parted to that 
where we heard the cries, was very short, yet from the incum- 
brances in that street, and from the dust and smoke issuing 
out of others, it was some time before we reached it. On 
our near approach, two old men threw themselves on the 
ground before us, and the elder spake thus. " Our age, 
Bonians, neither will nor ought to be our protection : we are, 
or rather we have been, judges of this land ; and to the utter- 



346 P. SCIPIO ^EMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANiETIUS. 

most of our power we have invited our countrymen to resist 
you. The laws are now yours." 

The expectation of the people was intense and silent : we 
had heard some groans ; and now the last words of the old 
man were taken up by others, by men in agony. 

" Yes, Romans ! w said the elder who accompanied him 
that hajl addressed us, " the laws are yours ; and none punish 
more severely than you do treason and parricide. Let your 
horses turn this corner, and you will see before you traitors and 
parricides." 

We entered a small square : it had been a market-place : 
the roofs of the stalls were demolished, and the stones of 
several columns, (thrown down to extract the cramps of iron 
and the lead that fastened them) served for the spectators, male 
and female, to mount on. Five men were nailed on crosses ; 
two others were nailed against a wall, from scarcity (as we 
were told) of wood. 

" Can seven men have murdered their parents in the same 
year ? " cried I. 

" No, nor has any of the seven," replied the first who had 
spoken. " But when heavy impositions were laid upon those 
who were backward in voluntary contributions, these men, 
among the richest in our city, protested by the gods that they 
had no gold or silver left. They protested truly." 

" And they die for this ! inhuman, insatiable, inexorable 
wretch ! " 

" Their books," added he, unmoved at my reproaches, " were 
seized by public authority and examined. It was discovered 
that, instead of employing their riches in external or internal 
commerce, or in manufactories, or in agriculture, instead of 
reserving it for the embellishment of the city, or the utility of 
the citizens, instead of lending it on interest to the industrious 
and the needy, they had lent it to foren kings and tyrants, 
some of whom were waging unjust wars by these very means, 
and others were enslaving their own country. For so hainous 
a crime the laws had appointed no specific punishment. On 
such occasions the people and elders vote in what manner the 
delinquent shall be prosecuted, lest any offender should escape 
with impunity, from their humanity or improvidence. Some 
voted that these wretches should be cast amid the panthers ; 
the majority decreed them (I think wisely) a more lingering 
and more ignominious death." 



P. SCIPIO vEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PAN/ETIUS. 347 

The men upon the crosses held down their heads, whether 
from shame or pain or feebleness. The sunbeams were striking 
*them fiercely ; sweat ran from them, liquefying the blood that 
had blackened and hardened on their hands and feet. A soldier 
stood by the side of each, lowering the point of his spear to 
the ground; but no one of them gave it up to us. A centu- 
rion asked the nearest of them how he dared to stan(J armed 
before him. 

" Because the city is in ruins, and the laws stil live/' said 
he. "At the first order of the conqueror or the .elders, 
I surrender my spear." 

" What is your pleasure, commander ? " said the elder. 

€s That an act of justice be the last public act performed by 
the citizens of Carthage, and that the sufferings of these 
wretches be not abridged." 

Such w r as my reply. The soldiers piled their spears, for the 
points of which the hearts of the crucified men thirsted • and 
the people hailed us as they would have hailed deliverers. 

SCIPIO. 

It is wonderful that a city, in which private men are so 
wealthy as to furnish the armories of tyrants, should have 
existed so long, and flourishing in power and freedom. 

PANJ3TIUS. 

It survived but shortly this flagrant crime in its richer 
citizens. An admirable form of government, spacious and safe 
harbours, a fertile soil, a healthy climate, industry and science 
in agriculture, in which no nation is equal to the Moorish, 
were the causes of its prosperity: there are many of its 
decline. 

SCIPIO. 

Enumerate them, Pansetius, with your wonted clearness. 

PANOTITIS. 

We are fond, my friends ! of likening power and great- 
ness to the luminaries of heaven; and we think ourselves 
quite moderate when we compare the agitations of elevated 
souls to whatever is highest and strongest on the earth, liable 
alike to shocks and sufferings, and able alike to survive and 
overcome them. And truly thus to reason, as if all things 
around and above us sympathized, is good both for heart and 
intellect. I have little or nothing of the poetical in my 



348 F. SCIPIO JEMILIAXUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

character; and yet from reading over and considering these 
similitudes, I am fain to look upon nations with somewhat of 
the same feeling; and, dropping from the mountains and 
disentangling myself from the woods and forests, to fancy I see 
in states what I have seen in cornfields. The green blades 
rise up vigorously in an inclement season, and the wind itself 
makes them shine against the sun. There is room enough for 
all of them : none wounds another by collision or weakens by 
overtopping it; but, rising and bending simultaneously, they 
seem equally and mutually supported. No sooner do the ears 
of corn upon them He close together in their full maturity, 
than a slight inundation is enough to cast them down, or a 
faint blast of wind to shed and scatter them. In Carthage 
we have seen the powerful families, however discordant among 
themselves, unite against the popular ; and it was only when 
their lives were at stake that the people co-operated with the 
senate. 

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a 
mercantile aristocracy can not stand. What people will endure 
the supremacy of those, uneducated and presumptuous, from 
whom they buy their mats and faggots, and who receive their 
money for the most ordinary and vile utensils ? If no con- 
queror enslaves them from abroad, they would, under such 
disgrace, welcome as their deliverer, and acknowledge as their 
master, the citizen most distinguished for his military achieve- 
ments. The rich men who were crucified in the weltering 
wilderness beneath us, would not have employed such criminal 
means of growing richer, had they never been persuaded to the 
contrary, and that enormous wealth would enable them to 
commit another and a more flagitious act of treason against 
their country, in raising them above the people, and enabling 
them to become its taxers and oppressors. 

iEmilianus ! what a costly beacon here hath Borne before 
her in this awful conflagration : the greatest (I hope) ever to 
be, until that wherein the world must perish. 

POLYBIUS. 

How many Sibylline books are legible in yonder embers ! 

The causes, Panaetius, which you have stated, of Carthage's 
former most flourishing condition, are also those why a hostile 
senate hath seen the necessity of her destruction, necessary not 
only to the dominion, but to the security, of Rome. Italy has 



P. SCIPIO jEMILIAXUS, POLYBIUS, PAX/ETIUS. 349 

the fewest and the worst harbours of any country known to 
us : a third of her soil is sterile, a third of the remainder is 
pestiferous : and her inhabitants are more addicted to war and 
rapine than to industry and commerce. To make room for her 
few merchants on the Adriatic and Ionian seas, she burns 
Corinth : to leave no rival in traffic or in power, she burns 
Carthage. 

PA^uETIUS. 

If the Carthaginians had extended their laws and language 
over the surrounding states of Africa, which they might have 
done by moderation and equity, this ruin could not have been 
effected. Rome has been victorious by having been the first 
to adopt a liberal policy, which even in war itself is a wise one. 
The parricides who lent their money to the petty tyrants of 
other countries, would have found it greatly more advantageous 
to employ it in cultivation nearer home, and in feeding those as 
husbandmen whom else they must fear as enemies. So little 
is the Carthaginian language known, that I doubt whether we 
shall in our lifetime see anyone translate their annals into 
Latin or Greek : and within these few days what treasures of 
antiquity have been irreparably lost ! The Romans will repose 
at citrean* tables for ages, and never know at last perhaps 
whence the Carthaginians brought their wood. 

SCIPIO. 

It is an awful thing to close as we have done the history of 
a people. If the intelligence brought this morning to Polybius 
be true, f in one year the two most flourishing and most 
beautiful cities in the world have perished, in comparison with 
which our Rome presents but the pent-houses of artizans or 
the sheds of shepherds. With whatever celerity the messenger 
fled from Corinth and arrived here, the particulars must have 
been known at Rome as early, and I shall receive them ere 
many days are past. 

* The troths citrea is not citron wood as we understand the fruit tree. It 
was often of great dimensions : it appears from the description of its 
colour to have been mahogany. The trade to the Atlantic continent and 
ilands must have been possessed by a company, bound to secrecy by oath 
aud interest. The prodigious price of this wood at Rome proves that it 
had ceased to be imported, or perhaps found, in the time of Cicero. 

f Corinth in fact was not burnt until some months after Carthage ; but as 
one success is always followed by the rumour of another, the relation is 
not improbable. 



350 P. SCIPIO jEMILIANUS, polybius, panotitis. 

PANiETIUS. 

I hardly know whether we are not less affected at the 
occurrence of two or three momentous and terrible events, 
than at one ; and whether the gods do not usually place them 
together in the order of things, that we may be awe-stricken 
by the former, and reconciled to their decrees by the latter, 
from an impression of their power. I know not what Babylon 
may have been \ but I presume that, as in the case of all other 
great Asiatic capitals, the habitations of the people (who are 
slaves) were wretched, and that the magnificence of the place 
consisted in the property of the king and priesthood, and in 
the walls erected for the defence of it. Many streets probably 
were hardly worth a little bronze cow of Myron, such as a 
stripling could steal and carry off. The case of Corinth and 
of Carthage was very different. Wealth overspread the greater 
part of them, competence and content the whole. "Wherever 
there are despotical governments, poverty and industry dwell 
together ; Shame dogs them in the public walks • Humiliation 
is among their household gods. 

SCIPIO. 

I do not remember the overthrow of any two other great 
cities within so short an interval. 

PAN^TIUS. 

I was not thinking so much of cities or their inhabitants, 
when I began to speak of what a breath of the gods removes 
at once from earth. I was recollecting, iEmilianus, that 
in one Olympiad the three greatest men that ever appeared 
together were swept off. What is Babylon, or Corinth, or 
Carthage, in comparison with these ! what would their destruc- 
tion be, if every hair on the head of every inhabitant had 
become a man, such as most men are ! First in order of 
removal was he whose steps you have followed, and whose 
labours you have completed, Africanus : then Philopcemen, 
whose task was more difficult, more complex, more perfect : 
and lastly Hannibal. What he was you know better than any. 

SCIPIO. 

Had he been supported by his country, had only his losses 
been filled up, and skilful engineers sent out to him with 
machinery and implements for sieges, we should not be dis- 
coursing here on what he was : the Eoman name had been 
extinguished. 



P. SCIPIO .EMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 351 

POLYBIUS. 

Since iEmilianus is as unwilling to blame an enemy as a 
friend, I take it on myself to censure Hannibal for two things, 
subject however to the decision of him who has conquered 
Carthage. 

SCIPIO. 

The first I anticipate : now what is the second ? 



I would hear both stated and discoursed on, although the 
knowledge will be of little use to me. 

POLYBIUS. 

I condemn, as every one does, his inaction after the battle 
of Cannse ; and, in his last engagement with Africanus, I 
condemn no less his bringing into the front of the center, as 
became some showy tetrarch rather than Hannibal, his eighty 
elephants, by the refractoriness of which he lost the battle. 

SCIPIO. 

What would you have done with them, Polybius ? 

POLTBIUS. 

Scipio, I think it unwise and unmilitary to employ any force 
on which we can by no means calculate. 



Gravely said and worthy of Polybius. In the first book of 
your history, which leaves me no other wish or desire than 
that you should continue as you begin it, we have, in three 
different engagements, three different effects produced by 
the employment of elephants. The first, when our soldiers in 
Sicily, under Lucius Postumius and Quinctus Mamilius, drove 
the Carthaginians into Heraclea ; in which battle the advanced 
guard of the ememy, being repulsed, propelled these animals 
before it upon the main body of the army, causing an irrepar- 
able disaster : the second, in the ill-conducted engagement of 
Atilius Regulus, who, fearing the shock of them, condensed his 
center, and was outflanked. He should have opened the lines 
to them and have suffered them to pass through, as the enemy's 
cavalry was in the wings, and the infantry not enough in 
advance to profit by such an evolution. The third was evinced 
at Panormus, when Metellus gave orders to the light-armed 
troops to harass them and retreat into the trenches, from which, 



352 P. SCIPIO JULIAN US, POLYBIUS, PANiETIUS. 

wounded and confounded, and finding no way open, they rushed 
back (as many as could) against the Carthaginian army, and 
accelerated its discomfiture. 

POLYBIUS. 

If I had employed the elephants at all, it should rather have 
been in the rear or on the flank ; and even there not at the 
beginning of the engagement, unless I knew that the horses or 
the soldiers were unused to encounter them. Hannibal must 
have well remembered (being equally great in memory and 
invention) that the Eomans had been accustomed to them in 
the war with Pyrrhus, and must have expected more service 
from them against the barbarians of the two Gauls, against the 
Insubres and Taurini, than against our legions. He knew 
that the Eomans had on more than one occasion made them 
detrimental to their masters. Having with him a large body 
of troops collected by force from various nations, and kept 
together with difficulty, he should have placed the elephants 
where they would have been a terror to these soldiers, not 
without a threat that they were to trample down such of them 
as attempted to fly or declined to fight. 

SCIPIO. 

Now, what think you, Pansetius ? 

PANOTITIS. 

It is well, iEmilianus, when soldiers would be philoso- 
phers ; but it is ill when philosophers would be soldiers. Do 
you and Polybius agree on the point ? if you do, the question 
need be asked of none other. 

SCIPIO. 

Truly, Pansetius, I would rather hear the thing from him 
than that Hannibal should have heard it : for a wise man will 
say many things which even a wiser may not have thought of. 
Let me tell you both however, what Polybius may perhaps 
know already, that combustibles were placed by Africanus both 
in flank and rear, at equal distances, with archers from among 
the light horsemen, whose arrows had liquid fire attached to 
them, and whose movements would have irritated, distracted, 
and wearied down the elephants, even if the wounds and 
scorchings had been ineffectual. But come, Polybius, you 
must talk now as others talk; we all do sometimes. 

POLYBIUS. 

I am the last to admit the authority of the vulgar ; but here 



P. SCIPIO iEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANiETIUS. 353 

we all meet and unite. Without asserting or believing that 
the general opinion is of any weight against a captain like 
Hannibal ; agreeing on the contrary with Pansetius, and firmly 
persuaded that myriads of little men can no more compensate 
a great one than they can make him ; you will listen to me if 
I adduce the authority of Lselius. 

SCIPIO. 

Great authority ! and perhaps, as living and conversing with 
those who remembered the action of Cannse, preferable even 
to your own. 

POLYBIUS. 

It was his opinion that, from the consternation of Rome, 
the city might have been taken. 

SCIPIO. 

It suited not the wisdom or the experience of Hannibal to 
rely on the consternation of the Roman people. I too, that 
we may be on equal terms, have some authority to bring 
forward. The son of Africanus, he who adopted me into the 
family of the Scipios, was, as you both remember, a man of 
delicate health and sedentary habits, learned, elegant, and 
retired. He related to me, as having heard it from Ms father, 
that Hannibal after the battle sent home the rings of the Roman 
knights, and said in his letter, " If you will instantly give me 
a soldier for each ring, together with such machines as are 
already in the arsenal, I will replace them surmounted by the 
statue of Capitoline Jupiter, and our supplications to the gods 
of our country shall be made along the streets and in the 
temples, on the robes of the Roman senate." Could he doubt 
of so moderate a supply ? he waited for it in vain. 

And now I will relate to you another thing, which I am 
persuaded you will accept as a sufficient reason of itself why 
Hannibal did not besiege our city after the battle of Cannse. 
His own loss was so severe, that, in his whole army, he could 
not muster ten thousand men.* 

But, my friends, as I am certain that neither of you will 
ever think me invidious, and as the greatness of Hannibal does 
not diminish the reputation of Africanus, but augment it, 
I will venture to remark that he had little skill or practice in 
sieges; that, after the battle of Thrasymene, he attacked (you 

* Plutarch says, and undoubtedly upon some ancient authority, that 
both armies did not contain that number. 



354 p. scipio jemilianus, polybius, panotitis. 

remember) Spoletum unsuccessfully ; and that, a short time 
before the unhappy day at Cannae, a much smaller town than 
Spoletum had resisted and repulsed him. Perhaps he rejoiced 
in his heart that he was not supplied with materials requisite 
for the capture of strong places; since in Rome, he well knew, 
he would have found a body of men, partly citizens who had 
formerly borne arms, partly the wealthier of our allies who had 
taken refuge there, together with their slaves and clients, 
exceeding his army in number, not inferior in valour, com- 
pensating the want of generalship by the advantage of position 
and by the desperation of their fortunes, and possessing the 
abundant means of a vigorous and long defence. Unnecessary 
is it to speak of its duration. When a garrison can hold our 
city six months, or even less, the besieger must retire. Such 
is the humidity of the air in its vicinity, that the Carthaginians, 
who enjoyed here at home a very dry and salubrious climate, 
would have perished utterly. The Gauls, I imagine, left us 
unconquered on a former occasion from the same necessity. 
Beside, they are impatient of inaction, and would have been 
most so under a general to whom, without any cause in common, 
they were but hired auxiliaries. None in any age hath 
performed such wonderful exploits as Hannibal; and we 
ought not to censure him for deficiency in an art which we 
ourselves have acquired but lately. Is there, Polybius, any 
proof or record that Alexander of Macedon was master of it ? 

POLYBIUS. 

I have found none. "We know that he exposed his person, 
and had nearly lost his life, by leaping from the walls of a 
city; which a commander-in-chief ought never to do, unless 
he would rather hear the huzzas of children, than the appro- 
bation of military men, or any men of discretion or sense. 
Alexander was without an excuse for his temerity, since he 
was attended by the generals who had taken Thebes, and who 
therefor, he might well know, would take the weaker and less 
bravely defended towns of Asia. 

SCIPIO. 

Here again you must observe the superiority of Hannibal. 
He was accompanied by no general of extraordinary talents, 
resolute as were many of them, and indeed all. His irruption 
into and through Gaul, with so inconsiderable a force; his 
formation of allies out of enemies, in so brief a space of time ; 



P. SCIPIO jEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PAN.ETIUS. 355 

and then his holding them together so long; are such miracles, 
that, cutting through eternal snows, and marching through 
paths which seem to us suspended loosely and hardly poised in 
the heavens, are less. And these too were his device and 
work. Drawing of parallels, captain against captain, is the 
occupation of a trifling and scholastic mind, and seldom is com- 
menced, and never conducted, impartially. Yet, my friends, 
who of these idlers in parallelograms is so idle, as to compare 
the invasion of Persia with the invasion of Gaul, the Alps, 
and Italy; Moors and Carthaginians with Macedonians and 
Greeks ; Darius and his hordes and satraps with Roman legions 
under Eoman consuls ? 

While Hannibal lived, Polybius and Pansetius ! although 
Iris city lay before us smouldering in its ashes, ours would be 
ever insecure. 

PANOTITIS. 

You said, Scipio, that the Romans had learnt but recently 
the business of sieges ; and yet many cities in Italy appear to 
me very strong, which your armies took long ago. 

SCIPIO. 

By force and patience. If Pyrrhus had never invaded us, 
we should scarcely have excelled the Carthaginians, or even 
the Ts T omades, in castrametation, and have been inferior to both 
in cavalry. Whatever we know, we have learned from your 
country, whether it be useful in peace or war . . I say your 
country ; for the Macedonians were instructed by the Greeks. 
The father of Alexander, the first of his family who was not as 
barbarous and ignorant as a Carian or Armenian slave, received 
his rudiments in the house of Epaminondas. 

PAKfflHUS. 

Permit me now to return, Scipio, to a question not 
unconnected with philosophy. "Whether it was prudent or 
not in Hannibal to invest the city of Rome after his victory, 
he might somewhere have employed his army, where it should 
not waste away with luxury. 

SCIPIO. 

Philosophers, Pansetius, seem to know more about luxury 
than we military men do. I can not say upon what their 
apprehensions of it are founded, but certainly they sadly 
fear it. 

A A 2 



356 P. SCIPIO J1MILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANiETIUS. 

POLTBIUS. 

For us. I wish I could as easily make you smile to-day, 
.zEmilianus, as I shall our good-tempered and liberal 
Pansetius ; a philosopher, as we have experienced, less inclined 
to speak ill or ludicrously of others, be the sect what it may, 
than any I know or have heard of. 

In my early days, one of a different kind, and whose alarms 
at luxury were (as we discovered) subdued in some degree, in 
some places, was invited by Critolaus to dine with a party of 
us, all then young officers, on our march from Achaia into 
Elis. His florid and open countenance made his company 
very acceptable : and the more so, as we were informed by 
Critolaus that he never was importunate with his morality at 
dinner-time. 

Philosophers, if they deserve the name, are by no means 
indifferent as to the places in which it is their intention to sow 
the seeds of virtue. They choose the ingenuous, the modest, 
the sensible, the obedient. We thought rather of where we 
should place our table. Behind us lay the forest of Pholoe, 
with its many glens opening to the plain : before us the 
Temple of Olympian Zeus, indistinctly discernible, leaned 
against the azure heavens : and the rivulet of Selinus ran a 
few stadions from us, seen only where it received a smaller 
streamlet, originating at a fountain close by. 

The cistus, the pomegranate, the myrtle, the serpolet, 
bloomed over our heads and beside us ; for we had chosen a 
platform where a projecting rock, formerly a stone-quarry, 
shaded us, and where a little rill, of which the spring was 
there, bedimmed our goblets with the purest water. The 
awnings we had brought with us to protect us from the sun, 
were unnecessary for that purpose : we rolled them therefor 
into two long seats, filling them with moss, which grew pro- 
fusely a few paces below. u When our guest arrives," said 
Critolaus, u every one of these flowers will serve him for some 
moral illustration ; every shrub will be the rod of Mercury in 
his hands." We were impatient for the time of his coming. 
Thelymnia, the beloved of Critolaus, had been instructed by 
him in a stratagem, to subvert, or shake at least and stagger, 
the philosophy of Euthymedes. Has the name escaped me ! 
no matter . . perhaps he is dead . . if living, he would smile 
at a recoverable lapse as easily as we did. 

Thelymnia wore a dress like ours, and acceded to every 



P. SCIPIO ^EMILIAXUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 357 

advice of Critolaus, excepting that she would not consent so 
readily to entwine her head with ivy. At first she objected 
that there was not enough of it for all. Instantly two or three 
of us pulled down (for nothing is more brittle) a vast quantity 
from the rock, which loosened some stones, and brought down 
together with them a bird's nest of the last year. Then she 
said, H I dare not use tins ivy : the omen is a bad one." 

€t Do you mean the nest, Thelymnia ? " said Critolaus. 

u No, not the nest so much as the stones," replied she, 
faltering. 

" Ah ! those signify the dogmas of Euthymedes, which you, 
my lovely Thelymnia, are to loosen and throw down." 

At this she smiled faintly and briefly, and began to break 
off some of the more glossy leaves ; and we who stood around 
her were ready to take them and place them in her hair ; when 
suddenly she held them tighter, and let her hand drop. On 
her lover's asking her why she hesitated, she blushed deeply, 
and said, "Phoroneus told me I look best in myrtle." 

Innocent and simple and most sweet (I remember) was her 
voice, and, when she had spoken, the traces of it were 
remaining on her lips. Her beautiful throat itself changed 
colour ; it seemed to undulate ; and the roseate predominated 
in its pearly hue. Phoroneus had been her admirer : she gave 
the preference to Critolaus : yet the name of Phoroneus at that 
moment had greater effect upon him than the recollection of 
his defeat. 

Thelymnia recovered herself sooner. We ran wherever we 
saw myrtles, and there were many about, and she took a part 
of her coronal from every one of us, smiling on each ; but it 
was only of Critolaus that she asked if he thought that myrtle 
became her best. "Phoroneus," answered he, not without 
melancholy, "is infallible as Paris." There was something in 
the tint of the tender sprays resembling that of the hair they 
encircled : the blossoms too were white as her forehead. She 
reminded me of those ancient fables which represent the 
favorites of the gods as turning into plants ; so accordant and 
identified was her beauty with the flowers and foliage she had 
chosen to adorn it. 

In the midst of our felicitations to her we heard the 
approach of horses, for the ground was dry and solid ; and 
Euthymedes was presently with us. The mounted slave who 
led oif his master's charger, for such he appeared to be in all 



358 P. SCIPIO ^EMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

points, suddenly disappeared; I presume lest the sight of 
luxury should corrupt him, I know not where the groom 
rested, nor where the two animals (no neglected ones certainly, 
for they were plump and stately) found provender. 

Euthymedes was of lofty stature, had somewhat passed the 
middle age, but the Graces had not left his person, as they 
usually do when it begins to bear an impression of authority. 
He was placed by the side of Thelymnia. Gladness and 
expectation sparkled from every eye : the beauty of Thelymnia 
seemed to be a light sent from heaven for the festival ; a light 
the pure radiance of which cheered and replenished the whole 
heart. Desire of her w r as chastened, I may rather say was 
removed, by the confidence of Critolaus in our friendship. 

PAN^TIUS. 

Well said ! The story begins to please and interest me. 
Where love finds the soul he neglects the body, and only turns 
to it in his idleness as to an afterthought. Its best allurements 
are but the nuts and figs of the divine repast. 

POLTBIUS. 

We exulted in the felicity of our friend, and wished for 
nothing which even he would not have granted. Happy 
was the man from whom the glancing eye of Thelymnia seemed 
to ask some advice, how she should act or answer : happy 
he who, offering her an apple in the midst of her discourse, 
fixed his keen survey upon the next, anxious to mark where 
she had touched it. For it was a calamity to doubt upon 
what streak or speck, while she was inattentive to the basket, 
she had placed her finger. 

PAN.ETIUS. 

I wish, iEmilianus, you would look rather more severely 
than you do . . upon my life ! I can not . . and put an end 
to these dithyrambics. The ivy runs about usy and may 
infuriate us. 

SCIPIO. 

The dithyrambics, I do assure you, Pansetius, are not of my 
composing. We are both in danger from the same thyrsus : 
we will parry it as well as we can, or bend our heads before it. 

PANJETIUS. 

Come, Polybius, we must follow you then, I see, or fly you. 



P. SCIPIO MMILULNUS, polybius, panjetius. 359 

POLTBIUS. 

Would you rather hear the remainder another time ? 

PAN-ETIUS. 

By Hercules ! I have more curiosity than becomes me. 

POLTBIUS. 

No doubt, in the course of the conversation, Euthymedes 
had made the discovery we hoped to obviate. Never was his 
philosophy more amiable or more impressive. Pleasure was 
treated as a friend, not as a master : many tilings were found 
innocent that had long been doubtful : excesses alone were 
condemned. Thelymnia was enchanted by the frankness and 
liberality of her philosopher, although, in addressing her, 
more purity on his part and more rigour were discernible. 
His delicacy was exquisite. TThen his eyes met hers, they did 
not retire with rapidity and confusion, but softly and compla- 
cently, and as though it were the proper time and season of 
reposing from the splendours they had encountered. Hers 
from the beginning were less governable : when she found 
that they were so, she contrived scheme after scheme for 
diverting them from the table, and entertaining his unob- 
servedly. 

The higher part of the quarry, which had protected us 
always from the western sun, was covered with birch and 
hazel ; the lower with innumerable shrubs, principally the 
arbutus and myrtle. "Look at those goats above us/' said 
Thelvmnia. " What has tangled their hair so ? they seem 
wet." 

" They have been lying on the cistus in the plain," replied 
Euthymedes ; " many of its broken flowers are sticking upon 
them yet, resisting all the efforts, as you see, of hoof and 
tongue." 

" How beauteous," said she, " are the flexible and crimson 
branches of this arbutus," takinsr it in one hand and beating 
with it the back of the other. " It seems only to have come 
out of its crevice to pat my shoulder at dinner, and twitch my 
myrtle when my head leaned back. I wonder how it can grow 
in such a rock/' 

" The arbutus," answered he, " clings to the Earth with the 
most fondness where it finds her in the worst poverty, and 
covers her bewintered bosom with leaves, berries, and flowers. 
On the same branch is unripe fruit of the most vivid green ; 



360 P. SCIPIO iEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PAN^ETIUS. 

ripening, of the richest orange; ripened, of perfect scarlet. 
The maidens of Tyre could never give so brilliant and sweet a 
lustre to the fleeces of Miletus ; nor did they ever string such 
even and graceful pearls as the blossoms are, for the brides of 
Assyrian or Persian kings." 

"And yet the myrtle is preferred to the arbutus," said 
Thelymnia, with some slight uneasiness. 

" I know why," replied he . . " may I tell it ? " She 
bowed and smiled, perhaps not without the expectation of 
some compliment. He continued . . " The myrtle has done 
what the arbutus comes too late for. 

" The myrtle has covered with her starry crown the beloved 
of the reaper and vintager : the myrtle was around the head 
of many a maiden celebrated in song, when the breezes of 
autumn scattered the first leaves, and rustled among them on 
the ground, and when she cried timidly, Rise, rise ! people are 
coming ! here ! there ! many ! " 

Thelymnia said, " That now is not true. "Where did you 
hear it ? " and in a softer and lower voice, if I may trust 
Androcles, " Euthymedes, do not believe it ! " 

Either he did not hear her, or dissembled it ; and went on . . 
" This deserves preference ; this deserves immortality ; this 
deserves a place in the temple of Yenus ; in her hand, in her 
hair, in her breast : Thelymnia herself wears it." 

We laughed and applauded : she blushed and looked grave 
and sighed . . for she had never heard anyone, I imagine, talk 
so long at once. However it was, she sighed : I saw and 
heard her. Critolaus gave her some glances : she did not 
catch them. One of the party clapped his hands longer than 
the rest, whether in approbation or derision of this rhapsody, 
delivered with glee and melody, and entreated the philosopher 
to indulge us with a few of his adventures. 

■ c You deserve, young man," said Euthymedes gravely, " to 
have as few as I have had, you whose idle curiosity would thus 
intemperately reveal the most sacred mysteries. Poets and 
philosophers may reason on love, and dream about it, but rarely 
do they possess the object, and, whenever they do, that object 
is the invisible deity of a silent worshiper." 

u Reason then or dream," replied the other, breathing an 
air of scorn to sooth the soreness of the reproof. 

" When we reason on love," said Euthymedes, " we often 
talk as if we were dreaming : let me try whether the recital of 



P. SCIPIO JEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANiETIUS. 361 

my dream can make you think I talk as if I were reasoning. 
You may call it a dream, a vision, or what you will. 

" I was in a place not very unlike this, my head lying 
back against a rock, where its crevices were tufted with soft 
and odoriferous herbs, and where vine leaves protected my face 
from the sun, and from the bees, which however were less 
likely to molest me, being busy in their first hours of honey- 
making among the blossoms. Sleep soon fell upon me; for 
of all philosophers I am certainly the drowsiest, though 
perhaps there are many quite of equal ability in communicating 
the gift of drowsiness. Presently I saw three figures, two of 
which were beautiful, very differently, but in the same degree : 
the other was much less so. The least of the three, at the 
first glance, I recognised to be Love, although I saw no wings, 
nor arrows, nor quiver, nor torch, nor emblem of any kind 
designating his attributes. The next was not Yenus, nor a 
Grace, nor a Nymph, nor Goddess of whom in worship or 
meditation I had ever conceived an idea ; and yet my heart 
persuaded me she was a Goddess, and from the manner in 
which she spoke to Love, and he again to her, I was convinced 
she must be. Quietly and unmovedly as she was standing, 
her figure I perceived was adapted to the perfection of activity. 
With all the succulence and suppleness of early youth, scarcely 
beyond puberty, it however gave me the idea, from its graceful 
and easy languor, of its being possessed by a fondness for 
repose. Her eyes were large and serene, and of a quality to 
exhibit the intensity of thought, or even the habitude of 
reflection, but incapable of expressing the plenitude of joy; 
and her countenance was tinged with so delicate a colour, that 
it appeared an effluence from an irradiated cloud, passing over 
it in the heavens. The third figure, who sometimes stood in 
one place and sometimes in another, and of whose countenance 
I could only distinguish that it was pale, anxious, and mis- 
trustful, interrupted her perpetually. I listened attentively 
and with curiosity to the conversation, and by degrees I 
caught the appellations they interchanged. The one I found 
was Hope ; and I wondered I did not find it out sooner : the 
other was Eear ; which I should not have found out at all ; 
for she did not look terrible nor aghast, but more like Sorrow 
or Despondency. The first words I could collect of Hope 
were these, spoken very mildly, and rather with a look of 
appeal than of accusation. c Too surely you have forgotten, 



3G2 P. SCIPIO JEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PAN.ETIUS. 

for never was child more forgetful or more ungrateful, how 
many times I have carried you in my bosom, when even your 
mother drove you from her, and when you could find no other 
resting-place in heaven or earth/ 

" ' O unsteddy unruly Love ! ' cried the pale goddess with 
much energy, ' it has often been by my intervention that thy 
wavering authority w T as fixed. For this I have thrown alarm 
after alarm into the heedless breast that Hope had once 
beguiled, and that was growing insensible and torpid under 
her feebler influence. I do not upbraid thee ; and it never 
was my nature to caress thee; but I claim from thee my 
portion of the human heart, mine, ever mine, abhorrent as it 
may be of me. Let Hope stand on one side of thy altars, but 
let my place be on the other ; or, I swear by all the gods ! not 
any altars shalt thou possess upon the globe/ 

€t She ceased . . and Love trembled. He turned his eyes 
upon Hope, as if in his turn appealing to her. She said, ' It 
must be so ; it was so from the beginning of the world : only 
let me never lose you from my sight/ She clasped her hands 
upon her breast, as she said it, and he looked on her with a 
smile, and was going up (I thought) to kiss her, when he was 
recalled, and stopped. 

" c Where Love is, there will I be also/ said Fear, c and 
even thou, Hope ! never shalt be beyond my power/ 

" At these words I saw them both depart. I then looked 
toward Love : I did not see him go ; but he was gone." 

The narration being ended, there w T ere some who remarked 
what very odd things dreams are : but Thelymnia looked 
almost as if she herself was dreaming ; and Alcimus, who sat 
opposite, and fancied she was pondering on what the vision 
could mean, said it appeared to him a thing next to certainty, 
that it signified how love can not exist without hope or without 
fear. Euthymedes nodded assent, and assured him that a 
soothsayer in great repute had given the same interpretation. 
Upon which the younger friends of Alcimus immediately took 
the ivy from his forehead, and crowned him with laurel, as 
being worthy to serve Apollo. But they did it with so much 
noise and festivity, that, before the operation was completed, 
he began to suspect they were in jest. Thelymnia had listened 
to many stories in her lifetime, yet never had she heard one 
from any man before who had been favored by the deities 
with a vision. Hope and Love, as her excited imagination 



P. SCIPIO iEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 363 

represented them to her, seemed stil to be with Euthymedes. 
She thought the tale would have been better without the men- 
tion of Fear : but perhaps this part was only a dream, all the 
rest a really true vision. She had many things to ask him : 
she did not know when, nor exactly what, for she was afraid of 
putting too hard a question to him in the presence of so many, 
lest it might abash him if he could not answer it : but she 
wished to ask him something, anything. She soon did it, not 
without faltering, and was enchanted by the frankness and 
liberality of her philosopher. 

" Did you ever love ?" said she smiling, though not inclined 
to smile, but doing it to conceal (as in her simplicity she 
thought it would) her blushes, and looking a little aside, at 
the only cloud in the heavens, which crossed the moon, as if 
adorning her for a festival, with a fillet of pale sapphire and 
interlucent gold. 

" I thought I did," replied he, lowering his eyes that she 
might lower hers to rest upon him. 

"Do then people ever doubt this ?" she asked in wonder, 
looking full in his face with earnest curiosity. 

u Alas ! " said he softly, " until a few hours ago, until 
Thelymnia was placed beside me, until an ungenerous heart 
exposed the treasure that should have dwelt within it, to the 
tarnish of a stranger, if that stranger had the baseness to 
employ the sophistry that was in part expected from him, never 
should I have known that I had not loved before. TTe may 
be uncertain if a vase or an image be of the richest metal, 
until the richest metal be set right against it. Thelymnia ! if 
I thought it possible at any time hereafter, that you should 
love me as I love you, I would exert to the uttermost my 
humble powers of persuasion to avert it." 

" Oh ! there is no danger/'' said she, disconcerted ; " I did 
not love anyone : I thought I did, just like you ; but indeed, 
indeed, Euthymedes, I was equally in an error. Women have 
dropped into the grave from it, and have declared to the 
last moment that they never loved : men have sworn they 
should die with desperation, and have lived merrily, and have 
dared to run into the peril fifty times. They have hard cold 
hearts, incommunicative and distrustful/'' 

" Have I too, Thelymnia ? " gently he expostulated. 

"No, not you," said she; "you may believe I was not 
thinking of vou when I was speaking. But the idea does 



361 P. SCIPIO ^EMILIANUS, polybius, panotitis. 

really make me smile and almost laugh, that you should fear 
me, supposing it possible, if you could suppose any such thing. 
Love does not kill men, take my word for it." 

He looked rather in sorrow than in doubt, and answered : 
" Unpropitious love may not kill us always, may not deprive 
us at once of what at their festivals the idle and inconsiderate 
call life ; but, O Thelymnia ! our lives are truly at an end 
when we are beloved no longer. Existence may be continued, 
or rather may be renewed, yet the agonies of death and the 
chilliness of the grave have been passed through ; nor are there 
Elysian fields, nor the sports that delighted in former times, 
awaiting us, nor pleasant converse, nor walks with linked 
hands, nor intermitted songs, nor vengeful kisses for leaving 
them off abruptly, nor looks that shake us to assure us after- 
ward, nor that bland inquietude, as gently tremulous as the 
expansion of buds into blossoms, which hurries us from repose 
to exercise and from exercise to repose." 

" ! I have been very near loving ! w sighed Thelymnia. 
u Where in the world can a philosopher have learned all this 
about it ! " 

The beauty of Thelymnia, her blushes, first at the deceit, 
afterward at the encouragement she received in her replies, and 
lastly from some other things which we could not penetrate, 
highly gratified Critolaus. Soon however (for wine always 
brings back to us our last strong feeling) he thought again of 
Phoroneus, as young, as handsome, and once (is that the 
word ?) as dear to her. He saddened at the myrtle on the 
head of his beloved ; it threw shadows and gloom upon his 
soul; her smiles, her spirits, her wit, and, above all, her nods of 
approbation, wounded him. He sighed when she covered her 
face with her hand; when she disclosed it he sighed again. 
Every glance of pleasure, every turn of surprise, every move- 
ment of her body, pained and oppressed him. He cursed in 
his heart whoever it was who had stuffed that portion of the 
couch; there was so little moss, thought he, between Thelymnia 
and Euthymedes. He might have seen Athos part them, and 
would have murmured stil. 

The rest of us were in admiration at the facility and grace 
with which Thelymnia sustained her part, and observing less 
Critolaus than we did in the commencement, when he acknow- 
ledged and enjoyed our transports, indifferently and contentedly 
saw him rise from the table and go away, thinking his 



P. SCIPIO jEMILIANUS, polybius, panotitis. 365 

departure a preconcerted section of the stratagem. He retired, 
as he told us afterward, into a grot. So totally was his mind 
abstracted from the entertainment, he left the table athirst, 
covered as it was with fruit and wine, and abundant as ran 
beside us the clearest and sw r eetest and most refreshing rill. 
He related to me that, at the extremity of the cavern, he 
applied his parched tongue to the dripping rock, shunning the 
light of day, the voice of friendship, so violent was his desire 
of solitude and concealment, and he held his forehead and his 
palms against it when his lips had closed. "We knew not and 
suspected not his feelings at the time, and rejoiced at the 
anticipation of the silly things a philosopher should have 
whispered, which Thelymnia in the morning of the festival had 
promised us to detail the next day. Love is apt to get 
entangled and to. trip and stumble when he puts on the garb 
of Friendship : it is too long and loose for him to walk in, 
although he sometimes finds it convenient for a covering. 
Euthymedes the philosopher made this discovery, to which 
perhaps others may lay equal claim. 

After the lesson he had been giving her, which amused her 
in the dictation, she stood composed and thoughtful, and then 
said hesitatingly, " But would it be quite proper ? would there 
be nothing of insincerity and falsehood in it, my Critolaus ? " 
He caught her up in his arms, and, as in his enthusiasm he 
had raised her head above his, he kissed her bosom. She 
reproved and pardoned him, making him first declare and 
protest he would never do the like again. " soul of truth 
and delicacy ! " cried he aloud ; and Thelymnia, no doubt, 
trembled lest her lover should in a moment be forsworn ; so 
imminent and inevitable seemed the repetition of his offence. 
But he observed on her eyelashes, what had arisen from his 
precipitation in our presence, 

A hesitating long suspended tear. 

Like that which hangs upon the vine fresh-p mined, 

Until the morning kisses it away. 

The Nymphs, who often drive men wild (they tell us) have 
led me astray : I must return with you to the grot. We gave 
every facility to the stratagem. One slipt away in one direc- 
tion, another in another ; but, at a certain distance, each was 
desirous of joining some comrade, and of laughing together; 
yet each reproved the laughter, even when far off, lest it should 



366 P. SCIPIO JEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

do harm, reserving it for the morrow. While they walked 
along, conversing, the words of Euthymedes fell on the ears of 
Thelymnia softly as cistus-petals, fluttering and panting for a 
moment in the air, fall on the thirsty sand. She, in a voice 
that makes the brain dizzy as it plunges into the breast, replied 
to him, 

" Euthymedes ! you must have lived your whole life-time 
in the hearts of women to know them so thoroughly : I never 
knew mine before you taught me." 

Euthymedes now was silent, being one of the few wise men 
whom love ever made wiser. But, in his silence and abstrac- 
tion, he took especial care to press the softer part of her arm 
against his heart, that she might be sensible of its quick 
pulsation : and, as she rested her elbow within the curvature 
of his, the slenderest of her fingers solicited, first one, then 
another, of those beneath them, but timidly, briefly, incon- 
clusively, and then clung around it pressingly for countenance 
and support. Pansetius, you have seen the mountains on the 
left hand, eastward, when you are in Olympia, and perhaps the 
little stream that runs from the nearest of them into the 
Alpheus. Could you have seen them that evening ! the moon 
never shone so calmly, so brightly, upon Latmos, nor the torch 
of Love before her. And yet many of the stars were visible ; 
the most beautiful were among them; and as Euthymedes 
taught Thelymnia their names, their radiance seemed more 
joyous, more effulgent, more beneficent. If you have ever 
walked forth into the wilds and open plains upon such moon- 
light nights, cautious as you are, I will venture to say, 
Pansetius, you have often tript, even though the stars were not 
your study. There was an arm to support or to catch 
Thelymnia : yet she seemed incorrigible. Euthymedes was 
patient : at last he did I know not what, which was followed 
by a reproof, and a wonder how he could have done so, and 
another how he could answer for it. He looked ingenuously 
and apologetically, forgetting to correct his fault in the mean- 
while. She listened to him attentively, pushing his hand 
away at intervals, yet less frequently and less resolutely in the 
course of his remonstrance, particularly when he complained 
to her that the finer and more delicate part of us, the eye, may 
wander at leisure over what is in its way; yet that its 
dependents in the corporeal system must not follow it ; that 
they must hunger and faint in the service of a power so rich 



P. SCIPIO .EMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 367 

and absolute. " This being hard, unjust, and cruel/' said he, 
" never can be the ordinance of the gods. Love alone feeds 
the famishing ; Love alone places all things, both of matter 
and of mind, in perfect harmony ; Love hath less to learn from 
TTisdorn than Wisdom hath to learn from Love." 

" Modest man ! " said she to herself, " there is a great deal 
of truth in what he says, considering he is a philosopher." 
She then asked him, after a pause, why he had not spoken so 
in the conversation on love, which appeared to give animation, 
mirth, and wit, to the dullest of the company, and even to 
make the wines of Chios, Crete, and Lesbos, sparkle with fresh 
vivacity in their goblets. 

" I who was placed by the fountain-head," replied he, " had 
no inclination to follow the shallow and slender stream, taking 
its course toward streets and lanes, and dipt into and muddied 
by unhallowed and uncleanly hands. After dinner such topics 
are usually introduced, when the objects that ought to inspire 
our juster sentiments are gone away. An indelicacy worse 
than Thracian ! The purest gales of heaven in the most perfect 
solitudes, should alone lift up the aspiration of our souls to 
the divinities all men worship." 

u Sensible creature ! " sighed Thelymnia in her bosom, 
" how rightly he does think ! " 

"Come, fairest of wanderers," whispered he softly and 
persuasively, " such will I call you, though the stars hear me, 
and though the gods too in a night like this pursue their loves 
upon earth . . the moon has no little pools filled with her light 
under the rock yonder ; she deceives us in the depth of these 
hollows, like the limpid sea. Beside, we are here among the 
pinks and sand-roses : do they never prick your ankles with 
their stems and thorns ? Even their leaves at this late season 
are enough to hurt you." 

" I think they do," replied she, and thanked him, with a 
tender timid glance, for some fresh security his arm or hand 
had given her in escaping from them. " now we are quite 
out of them all ! How cool is the saxifrage ! how cool the 
ivy-leaves ! " 

" I fancy, my sweet scholar ! or shall I rather say (for you 
have been so oftener) my sweet teacher ! they are not ivy- 
leaves : to me they appear to be periwinkles." 

ei I will gather some and see," said Thelymnia. 

Periwinkles cover wide and deep hollows : of what are they 



368 P. SCIPIO ^EMILIANUS, POLTBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

incapable when the convolvulus is in league with them ! She 
slipped from the arm of Euthymedes, and in an instant had 
disappeared. In an instant too he had followed. 

PANOTITIS. 

These are mad pranks, and always end ill. Moonlights ! 
can not we see them quietly from the tops of our houses, or 
from the plain pavement? Must we give challenges to 
mastifs, make appointments with wolves, run after asps, and 
languish for stonequarries ? Unwary philosopher and simple 
girl ! Were they found again ? 

POLTBIUS. 

Yea, by Castor ! and most unwillingly. 

SCIPIO. 

I do not wonder. "When the bones are broken, without the 
consolation of some great service rendered in such misfortune, 
and when beauty must become deformity, I can well believe 
that they both would rather have perished. 

POLTBIUS. 

Amaranth on the couch of Jove and Hebe was never softer 
than the bed they fell on. Critolaus had advanced to the 
opening of the cavern : he had heard the exclamation of 
Thelymnia as she was falling . . he forgave her . . he ran to 
her for her forgiveness . . he heard some low sounds . . he 
smote his heart, else it had fainted in him . . he stopped. 

Euthymedes was raising up Thelymnia, forgetful (as was 
too apparent) of himself. " Traitor ! w exclaimed the fiery 
Critolaus, " thy blood shall pay for this. Impostor ! whose 
lesson this very day was, that luxury is the worst of poisons/'' 

" Critolaus/' answered he calmly, drawing his robe about 
him (for, falling in so rough a place, his vesture was a little 
disordered), "we will not talk of blood ; but as for my lesson 
of to-day, I must defend it. In few words then, since I think 
we are none of us disposed for many, hemlock does not hurt 
goats, nor luxury philosophers/' 

Thelymnia had risen more beautiful from her confusion; 
but her colour soon went away, and, if any slight trace of it 
were remaining on her cheeks, the modest moonlight and the 
severer stars would let none show itself. She looked as the 
statue of Pygmalion would have looked, had she been destined 
the hour after animation to return into her inanimate state. 



P. SCIPIO jEMILIANUS, POLYBITJS, PANOTITIS. 369 

Offering no excuse, she was the worthier of pardon : but there 
is one hour in which pardon never entered the human breast, 
and that hour was this. Critolaus, who always had ridiculed 
the philosophers, now hated them from the bottom of his 
heart. Every sect was detestable to him, the Stoic, the 
Platonic, the Epicurean; all equally; but especially those 
hypocrites and impostors in each, who, under the cloak of 
philosophy, come forward with stately figures, prepossessing 
countenances, and bland discourse. 

PAN^TIUS. 

We do not desire to hear what such foolish men think of 
philosophers, true or false ; but pray tell us how he acted on 
his own notable discovery ; for I opine he was the unlikeliest 
of the three to grow quite calm on a sadden. 

POLYBIUS. 

He went away; not without fierce glances at the stars, 
reproaches to the gods themselves, and serious and sad reflec- 
tions upon destiny. Being however a pious man by consti- 
tution and education, he thought he had spoken of the omens 
unadvisedly, and found other interpretations for the stones we 
had thrown down with the ivy. " And ah ! " said he sighing, 
"the bird's nest of last year too ! I now know what 
that is!" 

PANOTITIS. 

Polybius, I considered you too grave a man to report such 
idle stories. The manner is not yours : I rather think you 
have torn out a page or two from some love-feast (not generally 
known) of Plato. 

POLYBIUS. 

Your judgment has for once deserted you, my friend. If 
Plato had been present, he might then indeed have described 
what he saw, and elegantly ; but if he had feigued the story, 
the name that most interests us would not have ended with a 



You convince me, Polybius. 

PANOTITIS. 

I join my hands, and give them to you. 

POLYBIUS. 

My usual manner is without variety. I endeavour to 



370 P. SCIPIO JUMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

collect as much sound sense and as many solid facts as I can, 
to distribute them as commodiously, and to keep them as clear 
of ornament. If anyone thought of me or my style in reading 
my history, I should condemn myself as a defeated man. 

SCIPIO. 

Polybius, you are by far the wisest that ever wrote history, 
though many wise have written it, and if your facts are 
sufficiently abundant, your work will be the most interesting 
and important. 



POLYBIUS. 



PAN^TIUS. 



Live then, Scipio ! 
■The gods grant it ! 

POLYBIUS. 

I know what I can do and what I can not (the proudest 
words perhaps that ever man uttered), I say it plainly to you, 
my sincere and judicious monitor \ but you must also let me 
say that, doubtful whether I could amuse our iEmilianus in 
his present mood, I would borrow a tale, unaccustomed as I 
am to such, from the libraries of Miletus, or snatch it from 
the bosom of Elephantis. 

SCIPIO. 

Your friendship comes under various forms to me, my dear 
Polybius, but it is always warm and always welcome. Nothing 
can be kinder or more delicate in you, than to diversify as 
much as possible our conversation this day. Pansetius would 
be more argumentative on luxury than I : even Euthymedes 
(it appears) was unanswerable. 

PANJSTIUS. 

the knave ! such men bring reproaches upon philosophy. 

SCIPIO. 

1 see no more reason why they should, than why a slattern 
who empties a certain vase on your head in the street, should 
make you cry, " Jupiter ! what a curse is water ! " 

PANOTITIS. 

I am ready to propose almost such an exchange with you, 
iEmilianus, as Diomedes with Glaucus . . my robe for yours. 

SCIPIO. 

Pansetius, could it be done, you would wish it undone. 



P. SCIPIO yEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS 371 

The warfare you undertake is the more difficult : we have not 
enemies on both sides, as you have. 

VAJUMTTUS. 

If you had seen strait, you would have seen that the offer 
was, to exchange my philosophy for yours. You need less 
meditation, and employ more, than any man. Now if you 
have aught to say on luxury, let me hear it. 

SCIPIO. 

It would be idle to run into the parts of it, and to make a 
definition of that which we agree on; but it is not so to 
remind you that we were talking of it in soldiers ; for the 
pleasant tale of Thelymnia is enough to make us forget them, 
even while the trumpet is sounding. Believe me, my friend 
(or ask Polybius), a good general will turn this formidable 
thing luxury to some account. He will take care that, like 
the strong vinegar the legionaries carry with them, it should 
be diluted, and thus be useful. 

PAX^TIUS. 

Then it is luxury no longer. 

SCIPIO. 

True; and now tell me, Pansetius, or you Polybius, what 
city was ever so exuberant in riches, as to maintain a great 
army long together in sheer luxury ? I am not speaking of 
cities' that have been sacked, but of the allied and friendly, 
whose interests are to be observed, whose affection to be 
conciliated and retained. Hannibal knew this and minded it. 

POLYBIUS. 

You might have also added to the interrogation, if you had 
thought proper, those cities which have been sacked; for there 
plenty is soon wasted, and not soon supplied again. 

SCIPIO. 

Let us look closer at the soldier's board, and see what is on 
it in the rich Capua. Is plentiful and wholesome food luxury? 
or do soldiers run into the market-place for a pheasant ? or do 
those on whom they are quartered pray and press them to eat 
it? Suppose they went hunting quails, hares, partridges; 
would it render them less active ? There are no wild-boars 
in that neighbourhood, or we might expect from a boar-hunt 
a visitation of the gout. Suppose the men drew their idea of 

B B 2 



372 P. SCIPIO CHILIAN US, POLYBIUS, PANJETIUS. 

pleasure from the school or from the practices of Euthymedes. 
One vice is corrected by another, where a higher principle 
does not act, and where a man does not exert the proudest 
dominion over the most turbulent of states . . . himself. 
Hannibal, we may be sure, never allowed his army to repose 
in utter inactivity ; no, nor to remain a single day without its 
exercise ... a battle, a march, a foraging, a conveyance of 
wood or water, a survey of the banks of rivers, a fathoming of 
their depth, a certification of their soundness or unsoundness 
at bottom, a measurement of the greater or less extent of their 
fords, a review, or a castrametation. The plenty of his camp 
at Capua (for you hardly can imagine, Pansetius, that the 
soldiers had in a military sense the freedom of the city, and 
took what they pleased without pay and without restriction) 
attached to him the various nations of which it was composed, 
and kept together the heterogeneous and discordant mass. It 
was time that he should think of this : for probably there was 
not a soldier left who had not lost in battle or by fatigue his 
dearest friend and comrade. 

Dry bread and hard blows are excellent things in themselves, 
and military requisites . . to those who converse on them over 
their cups, turning their heads for the approbation of others 
on whose bosom they recline, and yawning from sad dis- 
quietude at the degeneracy and effeminacy of the age. But 
there is finally a day when the cement of power begins to lose 
its strength and coherency, and when the fabric must be kept 
together by pointing it anew, and by protecting it a little from 
that rigour of the seasons which at first compacted it. 

The story of Hannibal and his army wasting away in luxury, 
is common, general, universal : its absurdity is remarked by 
few, or rather by none. 

POLTBIUS. 

The wisest of us are slow to disbelieve what we have learned 
early : yet this story has always been to me incredible. 



Beside the reasons I have adduced, is it necessary to remind 
you that Campania is subject to diseases which incapacitate the 
soldier ? Those of Hannibal were afflicted by them : few 
indeed perished ; but they were debilitated by their malady, 
and while they were waiting for the machinery which (even if 
they had had the artificers among them) could not have been 



P. SCIPIO iEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 373 

constructed in double the time requisite for importing it, the 
period of dismay at Rome, if ever it existed, had elapsed. The 
wonder is less that Hannibal did not take Rome, than that he 
was able to remain in Italy, not having taken it. Considering 
how he held together, how he disciplined, how he provisioned 
(the most difficult thing of all, in the face of such enemies) an 
army in great part, as one would imagine, so intractable and 
wasteful; what commanders, what soldiers, what rivers, and 
what mountains, opposed liim ; I think, Polybius, you will 
hardly admit to a parity or comparison with him, in the rare 
union of political and military science, the most distinguished 
of your own countrymen; not Philopcemen, nor Philip of 
Macedon; if indeed you can hear me without anger and 
indignation name a barbarian king with Greeks. 



When kings are docile, and pay due respect to those who 
are wiser and more virtuous than themselves, I would not 
point at them as objects of scorn or contumely, even among 
the free. There is little danger that men educated as we have 
been should value them too highly, or that men educated as 
they have been should eclipse the glory of Philopoemen. 
People in a republic know that their power and existence must 
depend on the zeal and assiduity, the courage and integrity, of 
those they employ in their first offices of state ; kings on the 
contrary lay the foundations of their power on abject heaxts 
and prostituted intellects, and fear and abominate those whom 
the breath of God hath raised higher than the breath of man. 
Hence, from being the dependents of their own slaves, both 
they and their slaves become at last the dependents of free 
nations, and alight from their cars to be tied by the neck to 
the cars of better' men. 

SCIPIO. 

Deplorable condition! if their education had allowed any 
sense of honour to abide in them. But we must consider them 
as the tulips and anemones and other gaudy flowers, that shoot 
from the earth to be looked upon in idleness, and to be 
snapped by the stick or broken by the wind; without our 
interest, care, or notice. We can not thus calmly contemplate 
the utter subversion of a mighty capital; we can not thus 
indifferently stand over the strong agony of an expiring 



374 P. SCIPIO iEMILIANUS, POLTBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

nation, after a gasp of years in a battle of ages, to win a world, 
or be for ever fallen. 

Seldom are we prone to commiserate the misfortunes of our 
enemies : the reason is, they are seldom great or virtuous men; 
and when they are, we are apt to think otherwise. But 
Hannibal hath shown greatness both in prosperity and adversity. 
He hath conciliated both the most barbarous and the most 
civilised of mankind, the most frugal and the most luxurious, 
the mountaineers of Helvetia, the princes of Campania ; and, if 
truth is ever painful to utter, it is painful now, he hath van- 
quished the most experienced in war. Again I see the Alps 
rise up before me ; and I witness the discomfiture of that 
commander whose name I reverence and bear. Resentment 
hath no place in my bosom : I can pity the man whom an 
ungrateful country helped his enemies to throw down ; who 
flies from potentate to potentate for protection; who is 
destined to die not in the land that nurtured him, probably 
not in the field of battle, probably not with kindred or friends 
about him. Enough ! enough ! somewhat of this may befall 
even those who are now prosperous and triumphant. 

PANOTITIS. 

We see little when we are cast down ; and when we are 
raised high we are ill-inclined to see all we might. Ingratitude 
is a monster not peculiar to Africa. 

POLTBIUS. 

The breed will never be exterminated. 

PANOTITIS. 

Never ; be sure of that : but there are men, however few of 
them, in all countries, who know a remedy for its venom. 

POLTBIUS. 

What can that be ? 

PANOTITIS. 

Covering the fresh wound with fresh kindness. It is not 
every one who has the privilege of making an ingrate ; there 
must be power and will to benefit. Hannibal, at all events, 
owes but small gratitude to the Roman Senate; yet, if his 
character is indeed so exalted as I am willing to suppose it, 
he would not be insensible to the praises his vanquisher hath 
bestowed on him. You estimate, O iEmilianus, the abilities 
of a general, not by the number of battles he has won, nor 



P. SCIP10 iEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 375 

of enemies he hath slain or led captive, but by the combinations 
he hath formed, the blows of fortune he hath parried or 
avoided, the prejudices he hath removed, and the difficulties 
of every kind he hath overcome. In like manner we should 
consider kings. Educated stil more barbarously than other 
barbarians, sucking their milk alternately from Vice and Folly, 
guided in their first steps by Duplicity and Flattery, whatever 
they do but decently is worthy of applause ; whatever they do 
virtuously, of admiration. I would say it even to Caius 
Gracchus ; I would tell him it even in the presence of his 
mother; unappalled by her majestic mien, her truly Roman 
sanctity, her brow that can not frown, but that reproves with 
pity ; for I am not so hostile to royalty as other philosophers 
are . . perhaps because I have been willing to see less of it. 



Cornelia is dearer to me for her virtues than even for our 
consanguinity ; and I reciprocate the fondness of her brave 
and intelligent sons, whose estrangement from our order I fear 
to trace and grieve to reprehend. Let us rather look once 
again toward your own country, Greece. Many have been 
signally courageous, signally judicious, in battle ; many by 
their eloquence have been leaders at Rome, where tumults and 
mutinies are more ready to break out and more difficult to 
quell ; many have managed the high and weighty magistratures 
with integrity and discretion, with hand equally firm and pure. 
Any one of these qualities is sufficient to constitute a memor- 
able man. But, Pansetius and Polybius, we do not find in 
the records of history, we do not find in the regions of fable, 
a greater than your Pericles, your Epammondas, your 
Philopcemen. 

POLYBIUS. 

Praise from you, iEmilianus, would have supported the 
heart of Philopcemen, which sank only under the ruins of our 
country. Of such materials as this praise, such glorification 
from superior minds, are the lamps that shine inextinguishable 
in the tomb. Eternal thanks to the Romans ! who, whatever 
reason they may have had to treat the Greeks as enemies, to 
traverse and persecute such men as Lycortas my father, and as 
Philopcemen my early friend, to consume our cities with fire, 
and to furrow our streets with torrents (as we have heard lately) 
issuing from the remolten images of gods and heroes, have 



376 P. SCIPIO iEMILIANUS, POLYBIUS, PANOTITIS. 

however so far respected the mother of Civilisation and of Law, 
as never to permit the cruel mockery of erecting Barbarism 
and Boyalty on their vacant bases. 

PAN^TIUS. 

Our ancient institutions in part exist ; we lost the rest when 
we lost the simplicity of our forefathers. Let it be our glory 
that we have resisted the most populous and wealthy nations, 
and that, having been conquered, we have been conquered by the 
most virtuous ; that every one of our chief cities hath produced 
a greater number of illustrious men than all the remainder of 
the earth around us ; that no man can anywhere enter his hall 
or portico, and see the countenances of his ancestors from 
their marble columels, without a commemorative and grateful 
sense of obligation to us ; that neither his solemn feasts nor 
his cultivated fields are silent on it ; that not the lamp which 
shows him the glad faces of his children, and prolongs his 
studies, and watches by his rest; that not the ceremonies 
whereby he hopes to avert the vengeance of the gods, nor the 
tenderer ones whereon are founded the affinities of domestic 
life, nor finally those which lead toward another ; would have 
existed in his country, if Greece had not conveyed them. 
Bethink thee, Scipio, how little hath been done by any other 
nation, to promote the moral dignity or enlarge the social 
pleasures of the human race. What parties ever met, in their 
most populous cities, for the enjoyment of liberal and specu- 
lative conversation? What Alcibiades, elated with war and 
glory, turned his youthful mind from general admiration and 
from the cheers and caresses of coeval friends, to strengthen 
and purify it under the cold reproofs of the aged ? What 
Aspasia led Philosophy to smile on Love, or taught Love to 
reverence Philosophy ? These, as thou knowest, are not the 
safest guides for either sex to follow • yet in these were united 
the gravity and the graces of wisdom, never seen, never 
imagined, out of Athens. 

I would not offend thee by comparing the genius of the 
Roman people with ours : the offence is removable, and 
in part removed already, by thy hand. The little of 
sound learning, the little of pure wit, that hath appeared in 
Rome from her foundation, hath been concentrated under 
thy roof: one tile would cover it. Have we not walked 
together, Scipio, by starlight, on the shores of Surrentum 



METELLUS AXD MAEIUS. 377 

and Baioe, of Ischia and Caprea, and hath it not occurred to 
thee that the heavens themselves, both what we see of thein 
and what lieth above our vision, are peopled with our heroes 
and heroines ? The ocean, that roars so heavily in the ears of 
other men, hath for us its tuneful shells, its placid nymphs, 
and its beneficent ruler. The trees of the forest, the flowers, 
the plants, passed indiscriminately elsewhere, awaken and 
warm our affection; they mingle with the objects of our 
worship ; they breathe the spirit of our ancestors ; they lived in 
our form ; they spoke in our language ; they suffered as our 
daughters may suffer; the deities revisit them with pity; and 
some (we think) dwell among them. 

SCIPIO. 

Poetry ! poetry ! 

PAXiETIUS. 

Yes ; I own it. The spirit of Greece, passing through and 
ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, 
that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds 
burst forth with it . . and it falls, /firrrilianus, even from me, 

SCIPIO. 

It is from Greece I have received my friends Pangetius and 
Polybius. 

PANOTITIS. 

Say more, JEmilianus ! You have indeed said it here 
already ; but say it again at Rome : it is Greece who taught 
the Romans all beyond the rudiments of war : it is Greece 
who placed in your hand the sword that conquered Carthage. 



METELLUS AND MAEIUS. 

— ♦ — 



METELLUS. 

Well met, Cains Marius ! My orders are to find instantly 
a centurion who shall mount the walls ; one capable of obser- 
vation, acute in remark, prompt, calm, active, intrepid. The 
Numantians are sacrificing to the gods in secresy : they have 
sounded the horn once only; and hoarsely, and low, and 
mournfully, 



378 METELLUS AND MAEIUS. 

MARIUS. 

Was that ladder I see yonder among the caper-bushes and 
purple lilies, under where the fig-tree grows out of the 
rampart, left for me ? 

METELLUS. 

Even so, wert thou willing. Wouldst thou mount it ? 

MARIUS. 

Eejoicingly. If none are below or near, may I explore the 
state of things by entering the city ? 

METELLUS. 

Use thy discretion in that. 

What seest thou? Wouldst thou leap down? Lift the 
ladder. 

MARIUS. 

Are there spikes in it where it sticks in the turf ? I should 
slip else. 

METELLUS. 

How ! bravest of our centurions, art even thou afraid ? 
Seest thou any one by ? 

MARIUS. 

Ay; some hundreds close beneath me. 

METELLUS. 

Retire then. Hasten back ; I will protect thy descent. 

MARIOS. 

May I speak, Metellus, without an offence to discipline ? 

METELLUS. 

Say. 

MARIUS. 

Listen ! Dost thou not hear ! 

METELLUS. 

Shame on thee ! alight, alight ! my shield shall cover thee. 

MARIUS. 

There is a murmur like the hum of bees in the beanfield of 
Cereate ; # for the sun is hot, and the ground is thirsty. When 
will it have drunk up for me the blood that has run, and is yet 
oozing on it, from those fresh bodies ! 

* The farm of Marius, near Arpinum. 



METELLUS AND MARIUS. 379 

METELLUS. 

How ? We have not fought for many days ; what bodies 
then are fresh ones ? 

MARIUS. 

Close beneath the wall are those of infants and of girls : in 
the middle of the road are youths, emaciated; some either 
unwounded or wounded months ago ; some on their spears, 
others on their swords : no few have received in mutual death 
the last interchange of friendship ; their daggers unite them, 
hilt to hilt, bosom to bosom. 

METELLUS. 

Mark rather the living . . what are they about ? 

MARIUS. 

About the sacrifice, which portends them, I conjecture, but 
little good, it burns sullenly and slowly. The victim will lie 
upon the pyre til morning, and stil be unconsumed, unless 
they bring more fuel. 

I will leap down and walk on cautiously, and return with 
tidings, if death should spare me. 

Never was any race of mortals so unmilitary as these 
Numantians : no watch, no stations, no palisades across the 
streets. 

METELLUS. 

Did they want then all the wood for the altar ? 

MAEIUS. 

It appears so . . I will return anon. 

METELLUS. 

The gods speed thee, my brave honest Marius ! 

MARIUS (RETURNED). 

The ladder should have been better spiked for that slippery 
ground. I am down again safe however. Here a man may 
walk securely, and without picking his steps. 

METELLUS. 

Tell me, Caius, what thou sawest. 

MARIUS. 

The streets of Numantia. 

METELLUS. 

Doubtless ; but what else ? 



380 METELLUS AND MAEIUS. 

MARIUS. 

The temples and markets and places of exercise and foun- 
tains. 

METELLUS. 

Art thou crazed, centurion ! what more ? speak plainly, at 
once, and briefly. 

MARIUS. 

I beheld then all Numantia. 

METELLUS. 

Has terror maddened thee ? hast thou descried nothing of 
the inhabitants but those carcases under the ramparts ? 

MAEIUS. 

Those, Metellus, lie scattered, although not indeed far 
asunder. The greater part of the soldiers and citizens, of the 
fathers, husbands, widows, wives, espoused, were assembled 
together. 

METELLUS. 

About the altar ? 

MAEIUS. 

Upon it. 

METELLUS. 

So busy and earnest in devotion ! but how all upon it ? 

MAEIUS. 

It blazed under them and over them and round about them. 

METELLUS. 

Immortal gods ! Art thou sane, Caius Marius ? Thy 
visage is scorched : thy speech may wander after such an 
enterprise : thy shield burns my hand. 

MARIUS. 

I thought it had cooled again. Why, truly, it seems hot : 
I now feel it. 

METELLUS. 

"Wipe off those embers. 

MARIUS. 

'Twere better : there will be none opposite to shake them 
upon, for some time. 

The funereal horn that sounded with such feebleness, sounded 
not so from the faint heart of him who blew it. Him I saw ; 
him only of the living. Should I say it ? there was another : 
there was one child whom its parent could not kill, could not 



HETELLUS AND MARK'S. 381 

part from. She had hidden it in her robe, I suspect ; and, 
when the fire had reached it, either it shrieked or she did. 
For suddenly a cry pierced through the crackling pinewood, 
and something of round in figure fell from brand to brand, 
until it reached the pavement, at the feet of him who had 
blown the horn. I rushed toward him, for I wanted to hear 
the whole story, and felt the pressure of time. Condemn 
not my weakness, Cheilitis ! I wished an enemy to live 
an hour longer ; for my orders were to explore and bring 
intelligence. When I gazed on him, in higlith almost gigantic, 
I wondered not that the blast of his trumpet was so weak : 
rather did I wonder that Famine, whose hand had indented 
every limb and feature, had left him any voice articulate. I 
rushed toward him however, ere my eyes had measured either 
his form or strength. He held the child against me, and 
staggered under it. 

" Behold," he exclaimed, C( the glorious ornament of a 
Eoman triumph ! " 

I stood horror-stricken ; when suddenly drops, as of rain, 
pattered down from the pyre, I looked; and many were the 
precious stones, many were the amulets and rings and bracelets, 
and other barbaric ornaments, unknown to me in form or 
purpose, that tinkled on the hardened and black branches, 
from mothers and wives and betrothed maids ; and some too, 
I can imagine, from robuster arms, things of joyance won in 
battle. The crowd of incumbent bodies was so dense and 
heavy, that neither the fire nor the smoke could penetrate 
upward from among them; and they sank, whole and at once, 
into the smouldering cavern eaten out below. He at whose 
neck hung the trumpet, felt this, and started. 

" There is yet room," he cried, " and there is strength 
enough yet, both in the element and in me." 

He extended liis withered arms, he thrust forward the gaunt 
links of his throat, and upon knarled knees, that smote each 
other audibly, tottered into the civic fire. It, like some hungry 
and strangest beast on the innermost wild of Africa, pierced, 
broken, prostrate, motionless, gazed at by its hunter in the 
impatience of glory, in the delight of awe, panted once more, 
and seized him. 

I have seen within this hour, MeteUns ! what Borne in 
the cycle of her triumphs will never see, what the Sun in his 
eternal course can never show her, what the Earth has borne 



382 METELLUS AND MARIUS. 

but now and must never rear again for her, what Victory 
herself has envied her . . a Numantian. 

METELLUS. 

We shall feast to-morrow. Hope, Cams Marius, to become 
a tribune : trust in fortune. 



Auguries are surer : surest of all is perseverance. 

METELLUS. 

I hope the wine has not grown vapid in my tent : I have 
kept it waiting, and must now report to Scipio the intelligence 
of our discovery. Come after me, Caius. 

MARIUS (aLOXE). 

The tribune is the discoverer ! the centurion is the scout ! 
Caius Marius must enter more Numantias. Light-hearted 
Csecilius, thou mayest perhaps hereafter, and not with humbled 
but with exulting pride, take orders from this hand. If 
Scipio' s words are fate, and to me they sound so, the portals 
of the Capitol may shake before my chariot, as my horses 
plunge back at the applauses of the people, and Jove in his 
high domicile may welcome the citizen of Arpinum. 



Marius was young at the siege of Xumantia, and, entering the army with 
no advantage of connexion, would have risen slowly; but Scipio had 
marked his regularity and good morals, and desirous of showing the value 
he placed on discipline, when he was asked who, in case of accident 
to him, should succeed in the chief command, replied, Perhaps this man, 
touching the shoulder of Marius. 

Caius Caecilius Metellus was the youngest of four brothers : he served 
as tribune before isumantia, where Scipio said of him, Si quintum pareret 
mater ejus, asinum fuisse parituram. He was the kinsman of that Metellus 
by whose jealousy Marius was persecuted in the ISfumidian war. 



LUCULLUS AND CESAR. 583 



LUCULLrS AND CJESAE. 



Lucius Lucullus, I come to you privately and unattended, 
for reasons which you will know ; confiding, I dare not say in 
your friendship, since no service of mine toward you hath 
deserved it, but in your generous and disinterested iove of 
peace. Hear me on. Cneius Porapeius, according to the 
report of my connexions in the city, had, on the instant of my 
leaving it for the province, begun to solicit his dependants to 
strip me ignominiously of authority. Neither vows nor 
affinitv can bind him. He would degrade the father of his 
wife ; he would humiliate his own children, the unoffending, 
the unborn: he would poison his own nascent love at the 
suggestion of Ambition. Matters are now brought so far, 
that either he or I must submit to a reverse of fortune ; since 
no concession can assuage his malice, divert his envy, or gratify 
his cupidity, Xo sooner could I raise myself up, from the 
consternation and stupefaction into which the certainty of these 
reports had thrown me, than I began to consider in what 
manner my own private afflictions might become the least 
noxious to the republic. Into whose arms then could I throw 
myself more naturally and more securely, to whose bosom 
could I commit and consign more sacredly the hopes and 
destinies of our beloved country, than his who laid down 
power in the midst of its enjoyments, in the vigour of youth, 
in the pride of triumph, when Dignity solicited, when Friend- 
ship urged, entreated, supplicated, and when Liberty herself 
invited and beckoned to him, from the senatorial order and 
from the eurule chair ? Betrayed and abandoned by those we 
had confided in, our next friendship, if ever our hearts receive 
any, or if any will venture in those places of desolation, flies 
forward instinctively to what is most contrary and dissimilar. 
Caesar is hence the visitant of Lucullus. 

Lucrixrs. 
I had always thought Pompeius more moderate and more 
reserved than you represent Mm, Cains Julius ! and yet I am 



384 LUCULLUS AND CJESAR. 

considered in general, and surely you also will consider me, 
but little liable to be prepossessed by him. 

CESAR. 

Unless he may have ingratiated himself with you recently, 
by the administration of that worthy whom last winter his 
partisans dragged before the senate, and forced to assert 
publicly that you and Cato had instigated a party to circumvent 
and murder him; and whose carcase, a few days afterward, 
when it had been announced that he had died by a natural 
death, was found covered with bruises, stabs, and dislocations. 

LUCULLUS. 

You bring much to my memory which had quite slipped out 
of it, and I wonder that it could make such an impression on 
yours. A proof to me that the interest you take in my behalf 
began earlier than your delicacy will permit you to acknowledge. 
You are fatigued, which I ought to have perceived before. 



C^SAR. 



Not at all : the fresh air has given me life and alertness : 
I feel it upon my cheek even in the room. 

LUCULLUS. 

After our dinner and sleep, we will spend the remainder of 
the day on the subject of your visit. 

OESAR. 

Those Ethiopian slaves of yours shiver with cold upon the 
mountain here ; and truly I myself was not insensible to the 
change of climate, in the way from Mutina. 

What white bread ! I never found such even at Naples or 
Capua. This Pormian wine (which I prefer to the Chian) how 
exquisite ! 

LUCULLUS. 

Such is the urbanity of Caesar, even while he bites his lip 
with displeasure. How ! surely it bleeds ! Permit me to 
examine the cup. 

aaESAR. 

I believe a jewel has fallen out of the rim in the carriage : 
the gold is rough there. 

LUCULLUS. 

Marcipor ! let me never see that cup again. No answer, I 



LUCULLUS AND CiESAR. 385 

desire. My guest pardons heavier faults. Mind that dinner 
be prepared for us shortly. 

CESAR. 

In the meantime, Lucullus, if your health permits it, shall 
we walk a few paces round the villa ? for I have not seen 
anything of the kind before. 

LUCULLUS. 

The walls are double : the space between them two feet : 
the materials for the most-part earth and straw. Two hundred 
slaves, and about as many mules and oxen, brought the beams 
and rafters up the mountain : my architects fixed them at once 
in their places : every part was ready, even the wooden nails. 
The roof is thatched, you see. 

C^SAR. 

Is there no danger that so light a material should be carried 
off by the winds, on such an eminence ? 



None resists them equally well. 

OESAR, 

On this immensely high mountain I should be apprehensive 
of the lightning, which the poets, and I think the philosophers 
too, have told us, strikes the highest. 

LUCULLUS. 

The poets are right ; for whatever is received as truth, is 
truth in poetry ; and a fable may illustrate like a fact. But 
the philosophers are wrong ; as they generally are, even in the 
commonest things; because they seldom look beyond their 
own tenets, unless through captiousness ; and because they 
argue more than they meditate, and display more than they 
examine. Archimedes and Euclid are, in my opinion, after our 
Epicurus, the worthiest of the name, having kept apart to the 
demonstrable, the practical, and the useful. Many of the rest 
are good writers and good disputants ; but unfaithful suitors 
of simple Science ; boasters of their acquaintance with gods 
and goddesses ; plagiarists and impostors. I had forgotten my 
roof, although it is composed of much the same materials as 
the philosophers'. Let the lightning fall : one handful of 
silver, or less, repairs the damage. 

c c 



386 LUCULLTJS AND (LESAR. 

CAESAR. 

Impossible ! nor indeed one thousand ; nor twenty, if those 
tapestries* and pictures are consumed. 

LUCULLTJS. 

True ; but only the thatch would burn. Tor before the 
baths were tessellated, I filled the area with alum and water, 
and soaked the timbers and laths for many months, and covered 
them afterward with alum in powder, by means of liquid glue. 
Mithridates taught me this. Having in vain attacked with 
combustibles a wooden tower, I took it by stratagem, and found 
within it a mass of alum, which, if a great hurry had not been 
observed by us among the enemy in the attempt to conceal it, 
would have escaped our notice. I never scrupled to extort 
the truth from my prisoners : but my instruments were purple 
robes and plate, and the only w r heel in my armoury, destined 
to such purposes, was the wheel of Fortune. 

CESAR. 

I wish, in my campaigns, I could have equalled your 
clemency and humanity : but the Gauls are more uncertain, 
fierce, and perfidious, than the wildest tribes of Caucasus ; and 
our policy can not be carried with us ; it must be formed upon 
the spot. They love you, not for abstaining from hurting 
them, but for ceasing ■ and they embrace you only at two 
seasons ; when stripes are fresh or when stripes are imminent. 
Elsewhere I hope to become the rival of Lucullus in this 
admirable part of virtue. 

I shall never build villas, because . . but what are your 
proportions ? Surely the edifice is extremely low. 

LUCULLUS. 

There is only one floor : the highth of the apartments is 
twenty feet to the cornice, five above it ; the breadth is twenty- 
five ; the length forty. The building, as you perceive, is 
quadrangular : three sides contain four rooms each : the other 
has many partitions and two stories, for domestics and offices. 
Here is my salt-bath. 

C2ESAR. 

A bath indeed for all the Nereids named by Hesiod, with 
room enough for the Tritons and their herds and horses. 

* Caesar would regard such things attentively. " In expeditionibus 
tessellata et seetitia pavimenta circumtulisse ; signa, tabulas, operis 
antiquij semper animosissime comparasse," says Suetonius. 



LUCULLUS AND OESAH. 387 



Next to it, where yonder boys are carrying the myrrhine 
vases, is a tepid one of fresh water, ready for your reception. 

CESAR. 

I resign the higher pleasure for the inferior, as we all are 
apt to do ; and I will return to the enjoyment of your 
conversation when I have indulged a quarter of an hour in 
this refreshment. 

LUCULLUS. 

Meanwhile I will take refuge with some less elegant philo- 
sopher, whose society I shall quit again with less regret. 
{Caesar returning.) It is useless, Caius Julius, to inquire if 
there has been any negligence or any omission in the service 
of the bath : for these are secrets which you never impart to 
the most favored of your friends. 



I have "often enjoyed the luxury much longer, but never 
more highly. Pardon my impatience to see the remainder of 
your Apennine villa. 

LUCULLUS. 

Here stand my two cows. Their milk is brought to me 
with its warmth and froth; for it loses its salubrity both by 
repose and by motion. Pardon me, Caesar : I shall appear to 
you to have forgotten that I am not conducting Marcus 
Varro. 

C^SAR. 

You would convert him into Cacus : he would drive them 
off. What beautiful beasts ! how sleek and white and cleanly ! 
I never saw any like them, excepting when we sacrifice to 
Jupiter the stately leader from the pastures of the Clitumnus. 



Often do I make a visit to these quiet creatures, and with 
no less pleasure than in former days to my horses. Nor indeed 
can I much wonder that whole nations have been consentaneous 
in treating them as objects of devotion : the only tiling 
wonderful is, that gratitude seems to have acted as powerfully 
and extensively as fear; indeed more extensively; for no object 
of worship whatever has attracted so many worshipers. 
Where Jupiter has one, the cow has ten : she was venerated 

cc 2 



388 LUCULLUS AND CJESAIt. 

before he was born, and will be when even the carvers have 
forgotten him. 

C^SAR. 

Unwillingly should I see it ; for the character of our gods 
hath formed the character of our nation. Serapis and Isis have 
stolen in among them within our memory, and others will 
follow, until at last Saturn will not be the only one emasculated 
by his successor. What can be more august than our rites ? 
The first dignitaries of the republic are emulous to administer 
them : nothing of low or venal has any place in them, nothing 
pusillanimous, nothing unsocial and austere. I speak of them 
as they were; before Superstition woke up again from her 
slumber, and caught to her bosom with maternal love the 
alluvial monsters of the Kile. Philosophy, never fit for the 
people, had entered the best houses, and the image of Epicurus 
had taken the place of the Lemures. But men can not bear to 
be deprived long together of anything they are used to ; not 
even of their fears ; and, by a reaction of the mind appertaining 
to our nature, new stimulants were looked for, not on the side 
of pleasure, where nothing new could be expected or imagined, 
but on the opposite. Irreligion is followed by fanaticism, and 
fanaticism by irreligion, alternately and perpetually. 

! LTJCULLUS. 

The religion of our country, as you observe, is well adapted 
to its inhabitants. Our progenitor Mars hath Venus recum- 
bent on his breast, and looking up to him, teaching us that 
pleasure is to be sought in the bosom of valour and by the 
means of war. No great alteration, I think, will ever be made 
in our rites and ceremonies ; the best and most imposing that 
could be collected from all nations, and uniting them to us by 
our complacence in adopting them. The gods themselves 
may change names, to flatter new power : and indeed, as we 
degenerate, Eeligion will accommodate herself to our propen- 
sities and desires. Our heaven is now popular : it will become 
monarchal; not without a crowded court, as befits it, of 
apparitors and satellites and minions of both sexes, paid and 
caressed for carrying to their stern dark-bearded master prayers 
and supplications. Altars must be strown with broken minds, 
and incense rise amid abject aspirations. Gods will be found 
unfit for their places ; and it is not impossible that, in the ruin 
imminent from our contentions for power, and in the necessary 



LUCULLUS AND OESAU. 389 

extinction both of ancient families and of generous sentiments, 
our consular fasces may become the water-sprinklers of some 
upstart priesthood, and that my son may apply for lustration 
to the son of my groom. The interest of such men requires 
that the spirit of arms and of arts be extinguished. They will 
predicate peace, that the people may be tractable to them : but 
a religion altogether pacific is the fomenter of wars and the 
nurse of crimes, alluring Sloth from within and Violence from 
afar. If ever it should prevail among the Eomans, it must 
prevail alone : for nations more vigorous and energetic will 
invade them, close upon them, trample them under foot ; and 
the name of Roman, which is now the most glorious, will become 
the most opprobrious upon earth. 

CESAR. 

The time I hope may be distant ; for next to my own name 
I hold my country's. 

LUCULLUS. 

Mine, not coming from Troy or Ida, is lower in my estima- 
tion : I place my country's first. 

You are surveying the little lake beside us. It contains no 
fish : birds never alight on it : the water is extremely pure and 
cold : the walk round is pleasant ; not only because there is 
always a gentle breeze from it, but because the turf is fine, and 
the surface of the mountain on this summit is perfectly on a 
level, to a great extent in length ; not a trifling advantage to 
me, who walk often and am weak. I have no alley, no garden, 
no inclosure : the park is in the vale below, where a brook 
supplies the ponds, and where my servants are lodged; for 
here I have only twelve in attendance. 

CESAR. 

What is that so white, toward the Adriatic ? 



The Adriatic itself. Turn round and you may descry the 
Tuscan Sea. Our situation is reported to be among the highest 
of the Apennines . . . Marcipor has made the sign to me 
that dinner is ready. Pass this way. 

OESAR. 

What a library is here ! Ah Marcus Tullius ! I salute thy 
image. Why frownest thou upon me ? collecting the consular 



390 LUCULLUS AND (LESAR. 

robe and uplifting the right-arm, as when Rome stood firm 
again, and Catiline fled before thee. 

LUCULLUS. 

Just so ; such was the action the statuary chose, as adding 
a new endearment to the memory of my absent friend. 

CESAR. 

Sylla, who honored you above all men, is not here. 

LUCULLUS. 

I have his Commentaries : he inscribed them, as you know, 
to me. Something even of our benefactors may be forgotten, 
and gratitude be unreproved. 

C^SAR. 

The impression on that couch, and the two fresh honeysuckles 
in the leaves of those two books, would show, even to a 
stranger, that this room is peculiarly the master's. Are they 
sacred ? 

LUCULLUS. 

To me and Caesar. 

C^SAR. 

I would have asked permission . . 

LUCULLUS. 

Caius Julius, you have nothing to ask of Polybius and 
Thucydides; nor of Xenophon, the next to them on the 
table. 

CESAR. 

Thucydides ! the most generous, the most unprejudiced, the 
most sagacious, of historians. Now, Lucullus, you whose 
judgment in style is more accurate than any other Roman's, do 
tell me whether a commander, desirous of writing his Commen- 
taries, could take to himself a more perfect model than 
Thucydides. 

LUCULLUS. 

Nothing is more perfect, nor ever will be : the scholar of 
Pericles, the master of Demosthenes, the equal of the one 
in military science, and of the other not the inferior in civil 
and forensic ; the calm dispassionate judge of the general by 
whom he was defeated, his defender, his encomiast. To talk 
of such men is conducive not only to virtue but to health. 

OESAR. 

We have no writer who could keep up long together his 



LUCULLUS AND GESAB,. 391 

severity and strength. I would follow him ; but I shall be 
contented with my genius, if (Thucydides in sight) I come 
many paces behind, and attain by study and attention the 
graceful and secure mediocrity of Xenophon. 

LUCULLUS. 

You will avoid, I think, Caesar, one of his peculiarities ; his 
tendency to superstition. 

CESAR. 

I dare promise this ; and even to write nothing so flat and 
idle as his introduction to the Cyropcedia. The first sentence 
that follows it, I perceive, repeats the same word, with its 
substantive, four times. This is a trifle : but great writers and 
great painters do miracles or mischief by a single touch. Our 
authors are so addicted of late to imitate the Grecian, that a 
bad introduction is more classical than a good one. Not to 
mention any friend of yours, Crispus Sallustius, who is mine, 
brought me one recently of this description ; together with 
some detached pieces of a history, which nothing in our prose 
or poetry hath surpassed in animation, 

LUCULLUS. 

We ought to talk of these things by ourselves ; not before 
the vulgar ; by which expression I mean the unlearned and 
irreverent, in forum and in senate. Our Cicero has indeed 
avoided such inelegance as that of Xenophon : one perhaps 
less' pardonable may be found repeatedly in Ins works : I 
would say an inelegance not arising from neglect, or obtusity 
of ear, but coming forth in the absence of reflection. He 
often says, " mirari soleo" Now surely a wise man soon 
ceases to wonder at anything, and, instead of indulging in the 
habitude of wonder at one object, brings it closer to him, 
makes it familiar, discusses, and dismisses it. He told me in 
his last letter *of an incredible love and affection for me. 
Pardon me, Caesar ! pardon me, Genius of Rome ! and 
Mercury ! I exclaimed, " the clown I " laughing heartily. He 
would not that I should really have thought his regard 
incredible ; on the contrary, that I should believe in it and 
confide in it to its full extent, and that I should flatter myself 
it was not only possible but reasonable. In vain will any one 
remark to me, " such phrases are common." In our ordinary 
language there are many beauties, more or less visible according 
to their place and. season, which a judicious writer and forcible 



392 LUCULLUS AND (LESAR. 

orator will subject to his arbitration and service : there are 
also many things which, if used at all, must be used cautiously. 
I may be much at my ease without being in tatters, and 
without treading on the feet of those I come forward to salute. 
I arrogate to myself no superiority, in detecting a peculiar and 
latent mark upon that exalted luminary : his own effulgence 
showed me it. From Cicero down to me the distance is as 
great, as between the prince of the senate and the lowest voter. 
I influenced the friends of order ; he fulminated and exter- 
minated the enemies : I have served my country : he hath 
saved it. 

This other is my dining-room. You expect the dishes. 

OESAR. 

I misunderstood . . I fancied . . 

LUCULLUS. 

Eepose yourself, and touch with the ebony wand, beside 
you, the sphynx on either of those obelisks, right or left. 

CESAR. 

Let me look at them first. 

LUCULLUS. 

The contrivance was intended for one person, or two at 
most, desirous of privacy and quiet. The blocks of jasper in 
my pair, and of porphyry in yours, easily yield in their grooves, 
each forming one partition. There are four, containing four 
platforms. The lower holds four dishes, such as sucking 
forest-boars, venison, hares, tunnies, sturgeons, which you will 
find within; the upper three, eight each, but diminutive. 
The confectionary is brought separately : for the steam would 
spoil it, if any should escape. The melons are in the snow 
thirty feet under us : they came early this morning from a 
place in the vicinity of Luni, so that I hope they may be crisp, 
independently of their coolness. 

CESAR. 

I wonder not at anything of refined elegance in Lucullus : 
but really here Antiochia and Alexandria seemed to have 
cooked for us, and magicians to be our attendants. 

LUCULLUS. 

The absence of slaves from our repast is the luxury : for 
Marcipor alone enters, and he only when I press a spring with 



LTJCULLTJS AND CESAR. 393 

my foot or wand. When you desire his appearance, touch 
that chalcedony, just before you. 



I eat quick, and rather plentifully : yet the valetudinarian 
(excuse my rusticity, for I rejoice at seeing it) appears to 
equal the traveler in appetite, and to be contented with one 
dish. 

LUCULLUS. 

It is milk : such, with strawberries, which ripen on the 
Apennines many months in continuance, and some other 
berries of sharp and grateful flavour, has been my only diet 
since my first residence here. The state of my health requires it ; 
and the habitude of nearly three months renders this food not 
only more commodious to my studies and more conducive to 
my sleep, but also more agreeable to my palate, than any 
other. 

OESAR. 

Returning to Rome or Baise, you must domesticate and tame 

them. The cherries vou introduced from Pontus are now 

*/ 

growing in Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, and the largest 
and best in the world perhaps are upon the more sterile side 
of Lake Larius. 

LUCULLUS. 

There are some fruits, and some virtues, which, require a 
harsh soil and bleak exposure for their perfection. 



In such a profusion of viands, and so savoury, I perceive 
no odour. 

LUCULLUS. 

A flue conducts heat through the compartments of the 
.obelisks ; and if you look up, you may observe that those gilt 
roses, between the "astragals in the cornice, are prominent from 
it half a span. Here is an aperture in the wall, between 
which and the outer is a perpetual current of air. We are 
now in the dog-days ; and I have never felt in the whole 
summer more heat than at Rome in many days of March. 



Usually you are attended by troops of domestics and of 
dinner-friends, not to mention the learned and scientific, nor 
your own family, your attachment to which, from youth upward, 



394 LUCULLUS AND CJESAE. 

is one of the higher graces in your character. Your brother 
was seldom absent from you. 

LUCULLUS. 

Marcus was coming : but the vehement heats along the 
Arno, in which valley he has a property he never saw before, 
inflamed his blood ; and he now is resting for a few days at 
Faesulse, a little town destroyed by Sylla within our memory, 
who left it only air and water, the best in Tuscany. The 
health of Marcus, like mine, has been declining for several 
months : we are running our last race against each other : and 
never was I, in youth along the Tiber, so anxious of first 
reaching the goal. I would not outlive him : I should reflect 
too painfully on earlier days, and look forward too despond- 
ently on future. As for friends, lampreys and turbots beget 
them, and they spawn not amid the solitude of the Apennines. 
To dine in company with more than two, is a Gaulish and 
German thing. I can hardly bring myself to believe that I 
have eaten in concert with twenty • so barbarous and herd- 
like a practice does not now appear to me : such an incentive 
to drink much and talk loosely ; not to add, such a necessity 
to speak loud : which is clownish and odious in the extreme. 
On this mountain-summit I hear no noises, no voices, not 
even of salutation : we have no flies about us, and scarcely an 
insect or reptile, 

CESAR. 

Your amiable son is probably with his uncle : is he well ? 

LUCULLUS. 

Perfectly : he was indeed with my brother in his intended 
visit to me : but Marcus, unable to accompany him hither, or 
superintend his studies in the present state of his health, sent 
him directly to his uncle Cato at Tusculum, a man fitter than 
either of us to direct his education, and preferable to any, 
excepting yourself and Marcus Tullius, in eloquence and 
urbanity. 

CESAR. 

Cato is so great, that whoever is greater must be the happiest 
and first of men. 

LUCULLUS. 

That any such be stil existing, Julius, ought to excite 
no groan from the breast of a Roman citizen. But perhaps I 



LUCULLUS AND OESAR. 395 

wrong you : perhaps your mind was forced reluctantly back 
again, on your past animosities and contests in the senate. 

C^SAR. 

I revere him, but can not love him. 

LUCULLUS. 

Then, Caius Julius, you groaned with reason ; and I would 
pity rather than reprove you. 

On the ceiling, at which you are looking, there is no gilding, 
and little painting . . a mere trellis of vines bearing grapes, 
and the heads, shoulders, and arms, rising from the cornice 
only, of boys and girls climbing up to steal them, and scram- 
bling for them : nothing over-head : no giants tumbling down, 
no Jupiter thundering, no Mars and Venus caught at mid- day, 
no river-gods pouring out their urns upon us : for, as I think 
nothing so insipid as a flat ceiling, I think nothing so absurd 
as a storied one. Before I was aware, and without my parti- 
cipation, the painter had adorned that of my bedchamber with 
a golden shower, bursting from varied and irradiated clouds. 
On my expostulation, his excuse was, that he knew the Danae 
of Scopas, in a recumbent posture, was to occupy the centre of 
the room. The walls, behind the tapestry and pictures, are 
quite rough. In forty-three days the whole fabric was put 
together and habitable. 

The wine has probably lost its freshness : will you try 
some other ? 

CESAR. 

Its temperature is exact ; its flavour exquisite. Latterly I 
have never sat long after dinner, and am curious to pass 
through the other apartments, if you will trust me. 

LUCULLUS. 

I attend you. 

CESAR. 

Lucullus ! who is here ? what figure is that on the poop of 
the vessel ? can it be . . . 

LUCULLUS. 

The subject was dictated by myself; you gave it. 

C^SAR. 

Oh how beautifully is the water painted ! how vividly the 
sun strikes against the snows on Taurus ! the grey temples 
and pier-head of Tarsus catch it differently, and the monu- 



396 LTJCULLUS AND CLESAR. 

mental mount on the left is half in shade. In the countenance 
of those pirates I did not observe such diversity, nor that any 
boy pulled his father back : I did not indeed mark them or 
notice them at all. 

LUCULLUS. 

The painter in this fresco, the last work finished, had 
dissatisfied me in one particular. "That beautiful young 
face/' said I, " appears not to threaten death." 

" Lucius/' he replied, " if one muscle were moved, it were 
not Csesar's : beside, he said it jokingly, though resolved." 

" I am contented with your apology, Antipho : but what 
are you doing now ? for you never lay down or suspend your 
pencil, let who will talk and argue. The lines of that smaller 
face in the distance are the same." 

" Not the same," replied he, " nor very different : it smiles : 
as surely the goddess must have done, at the first heroic act of 
her descendant." 

CESAR. 

In her exultation and impatience to press forward, she seems 
to forget that she is standing at the extremity of the shell, 
which rises up behind out of the water ; and she takes no 
notice of the terror on the countenance of this Cupid who 
would detain her, nor of this who is flying off and looking 
back. The reflection of the shell has given a warmer hue 
below the knee : a long streak of yellow light in the horizon 
is on the level of her bosom ; some of her hair is almost lost 
in it : above her head on every side is the pure azure of the 
heavens. 

! and you w^ould not have led me up to this ? You, 
among whose primary studies is the most perfect satisfaction 
of your guests. 

LUCULLUS. 

In the next apartment are seven or eight other pictures from 
our history. 

There are no more : what do you look for ? 



I find not among the rest any descriptive of your own 
exploits. Ah Lucullus ! there is no surer way of making 
them remembered. 

This, I presume by the harps in the two corners, is the 
music-room. 



LUCULLUS AND CJESAR. 397 

LUCULLUS. 

No indeed ; nor can I be said to have one here : for I love 
best the music of a single instrument, and listen to it willingly 
at all times, but most willingly while I am reading. At such 
seasons a voice or even a whisper disturbs me : but music 
refreshes my brain when I have read long, and strengthens it 
from the beginning. I find also that if I write anything in 
poetry (a youthful propensity stil remaining) it gives rapidity 
and variety and brightness to my ideas. On ceasing, I com- 
mand a fresh measure and instrument, or another voice; 
which is to the mind like a change of posture or of air to the 
body. My health is benefited by the gentle play thus opened 
to the most delicate of the fibers. 



Let me augur that a disorder so tractable may be soon 
removed. What is it thought to be ? 

LUCULLUS. 

There are they who would surmise and signify, and my 
physician did not long attempt to persuade me of the contrary, 
that the ancient realms of iEsetes have supplied me with some 
other plants than the cherry, and such as I should be sorry 
to see domesticated here in Italy. 

C^SAR. 

The gods forbid ! Anticipate better things. The reason 
of Lucullus is stronger than the medicaments of Mithridates ; 
but why not use them too ? Let nothing be neglected. You 
may reasonably hope for many years of life : your mother 
stil enjoys it.* 

LUCULLUS. 

To stand upon one's guard against Death, exasperates her 
malice and protracts our sufferings. 

CJJSAR. 

Rightly and gravely said : but your country at this time 
can not do well without you. 

LUCULLUS. 

The bowl of milk which to-day is presented to me, will 
shortly be presented to my Manes. 

* Cicero relates that lie went from his villa to attend her funeral a few 
years afterward. 



398 LUCULLUS AND CLESAE. 

C^SAR. 



Do you suspect the hand ? 



LUCULLUS. 

I will not suspect a Roman : let us converse no more about 
it. 

C^SAR. 

It is the only subject on which I am resolved never to 
think, as relates to myself. Life may concern us, death not ; 
for in death we neither can act nor reason, we neither can 
persuade nor command ; and our statues are worth more than 
we are, let them be but wax. Lucius, I will not divine your 
thoughts : I will not penetrate into your suspicions, nor 
suggest mine. I am lost in admiration of your magnanimity 
and forbearance ; that your only dissimulation should be upon 
the guilt of your assassin ; that you should leave him power, 
and create liim virtues. 

LUCULLUS. 

Cains Julius, if I can assist you in anything you meditate, 
needful or advantageous to our country, speak it unreservedly. 

CESAR. 

I really am ashamed of my association with Crassus and 
Pompeius : I would not have anything in common with them, 
not even power itself. Unworthy and ignominious must it 
appear to you, as it does' to me, to compromise with an 
auctioneer and a rope-dancer ; for the meanness and venality 
of Crassus, the levity and tergiversation of Pompeius, leave 
them no better names. The bestiality of the one, the infidelity 
of the other, urge and inflame me with an inextinguishable 
desire of uniting my authority to yours for the salvation of 
the republic. 

LUCULLUS. 

I foretold to Cicero, in the words of Lucretius on the 
dissolution of the world, 

Tria talia texta 
Una dies dabit exitio. 

C^lSAR. 

Assist me in accomplishing your prophecy: or rather, 
accept my assistance : for I would more willingly hear a 
proposal from you than offer one. Reflections must strike 
you, Lucullus, no less forcibly than me, and perhaps more 
justly ; you are calmer. Consider all the late actions of 



LL'CriJXS AND CESAR, 39fl 

Cneius, and tell me who has ever committed any so indecorous 
with so grave a face ? He abstained in great measure from 
the follies of youth, only to reserve them accumulated for 
maturer age. Human life, if I may venture to speak fanci- 
fully in your presence, hath its equinoxes. In the vernal its 
flowers open under violent tempests : in the autumnal it is 
more exempt from gusts and storms, more regular, serene, and 
temperate, looks complacently on the fruits it has gathered; 
on the harvests it has reaped, and is not averse to the graces 
of order, to the avocations of literature, to the genial warmth 
of honest conviviality, and to the mild necessity of repose. 
Thrown out from the course of nature, this man stood aside 
and solitary, and found everything around him unattractive. 
And now, in the decline of life, he has recourse to those 
associates, of whom the best that can be said is, that they 
would have less disgraced its outset. Repulsing you and 
Cicero and Cato, the leaders of his party and the propagators 
of his power, Pompeius the Great takes the arm of Clodius, 
and walks publicly with him in the forum ; who nevertheless 
the other day headed a chorus (I am informed) of the most 
profligate and opprobrious youths in Rorne, and sang respon- 
sively worse than Pescennine songs to his dishonour. Where 
was he ? Before them ? in court ? defending a client ? He 
came indeed with that intention; but sat mortified, speechless, 
and despondent. The senate connived at the mdignity. Even 
Gabinius, his flatterer and dependent, shuns him. The other 
consul is alienated from him totally, and favors me through 
Calpurnia, who watches over my security and interests at 
home. Julia my daughter was given in marriage to 
Pompeius for this purpose only : she fails to accomplish it : 
politically then and morally, the marriage loses its validity by 
losing its intent. I go into Gaul, commander for five years : 
Crassus is preparing for an expedition against the Partliians : 
the senate and people bend before Pompeius, but reluctantly 
and indignantly. Everything would be more tolerable to 
me, if I could permit lrim to boast that he had duped me : 
but my glory requires that, letting him choose his own encamp- 
ment, square the declivities, clear the ground about the 
eminence, foss and pale it, I should storm, and keep it. 
Whatever he may boast of his eloquence and military skill, 
I fear nothing from the orator who tells us what he would 
have spoken, nor from the general who sees what he should 



400 LUCULLTJS AND C^SAE. 

have done. My first proposal for accommodation and concord 
shall be submitted to you (if indeed you will not frame it for 
me), and should you deem it unfair shall be suppressed. No 
successive step shall be made by me without your concurrence : 
in short, I am inclined to take up any line of conduct, in 
conjunction with you, for the settling of the commonwealth. 
Does the proposal seem to you so unimportant on the one 
hand, or so impracticable and unreasonable on the other, that 
you smile and shake your head ? 

LUCULLTJS. 

Caesar ! Csesar ! you write upon language and analogy ; 
no man better. Tell me then whether mud is not said to 
be settled when it sinks to the bottom ? and whether those 
who are about to sink a state, do not in like manner talk of 
settling it? 

CESAR. 

I wish I had time to converse with you on language, or 
skill to parry your reproofs with equal wit; for serious you 
can not be. At present let us remove what is bad ; which 
must always be done before good of any kind can spring up. 

The designs of Cneius are suspected by many in the senate, 
and his pride is obnoxious to all. Your party would prevail 
against him ; for he has enriched fewer adherents than you 
have ; and even his best friends are for the most-part in a 
greater degree yours. 

LUCULLUS. 

I have enriched no adherents^ Caius Julius. Many of my 
officers, it is true, are easy in their circumstances : they how- 
ever gained their wealth, not from the plunder of our 
confederates, not from those who should enjoy with security 
their municipal rights and paternal farms in Italy, but from 
the enemy's camps and cities. , 

C^SAR. 

We tw r o might appease the public mind, preparing the 
leaders of the senate for our labours, and intimidating the 
factious. 

LUCULLUS. 

Hilarity never forsakes you, Csesar ! and you are the 
happiest man upon earth in the facility with which you com- 
municate it. Hear me, and believe me. I am about to 
mount higher than triumviral tribunal or than triumphal car. 



LUCULLTJS AND (LESAR. 401 

They who are under me will turn their faces from me ; such 
are the rites : but not a voice of reproach or of petulance shall 
be heard, when the trumpets tell our city that the funereal 
flames are surmounting the mortal spoils of Lucullus. 

CJESAR. 

Mildest and most equitable of men ! I have been much 

wronged; would you also wrong me? Lucius, you have 

forced from me a tear before the time. I weep at magna- 
nimity ; which no man does w T ho wants it. 

LUCULLUS. 

"Why can not you enjoy the command of your province, and 
the glory of having quelled so many nations ? 



I can not bear the superiority of another. 



The weakest of women feel so : but even the weakest of 
them are ashamed to acknowledge it : who hath ever heard 
any one ? Have you, who know them widely and well ? 
Poetasters and mimes, laboring under such infirmity, put the 
mask on. You pursue glory : the pursuit is just and rational ; 
but reflect that statuaries and painters have represented heroes 
calm and quiescent, not straining and panting like pugilists 
and gladiators. 

From being for ever in action, for ever in contention, and 
from excelling in them all other mortals, what advantage 
derive we ? I would not ask what satisfaction? what glory? 
The insects have more activity than ourselves, the beasts more 
strength, even inert matter more firmness and stability; the 
gods alone more goodness. To the exercise of this every 
country lies open : and neither I eastward nor you westward 
have found any exhausted by contests for it. 

Must we give men blows because they will not look at us ? 
or chain them to make them hold the balance evener ? 

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much 
less for what you would be ; since no one can well measure a 
great man but upon the bier. There was a time when the 
most ardent friend to Alexander of Macedon, would have 
embraced the partisan for his enthusiasm, who should have 
compared him with Alexander of Pherse. It must have been 



402 LUCULLUS AND (LESAR. 

at a splendid feast, and late at it, when Scipio should have 
been raised to an equality with Romulus, or Cato with Curius. 
It has been whispered in my ear, after a speech of Cicero, " If 
he goes on so, he will tread down the sandal of Marcus 
Antonius in the long run, and perhaps leave Hortensius 
behind." Officers of mine, speaking about you, have exclaimed 
with admiration, " He fights like Cuma." Think, Caius 
Julius ! (for you have been instructed to think both as a poet 
and as a philosopher) that among the hundred hands of 
Ambition, to whom we may attribute them more properly than 
to Briareus, there is not one which holds anything firmly. In 
the precipitancy of her course, what appears great is small, 
and what appears small is great. Our estimate of men is apt 
to be as inaccurate and inexact as that of things, or more. 
Wishing to have all on our side, we often leave those we 
should keep by us, run after those we should avoid, and call 
importunately on others who sit quiet and will not come. We 
can not at once catch the applause of the vulgar and expect 
the approbation of the wise. What are parties ? Do men 
really great ever enter into them ? Are they not ball -courts, 
where ragged adventurers strip and strive, and where disso- 
lute youths abuse one another, and challenge and game and 
wager ? If you and I can not quite divest ourselves of infir- 
mities and passions, let us think however that there is enough 
in us to be divided into two portions, and let us keep the 
upper undisturbed and pure. A part of Olympus itself lies in 
dreariness and in clouds, variable and stormy ; but it is not 
the highest : there the gods govern. Your soul is large 
enough to embrace your country : all other affection is for less 
objects, and less men are capable of it. Abandon, Csesar ! 
such thoughts and wishes as now agitate and propell you : leave 
them to mere men of the marsh, to fat hearts and miry 
intellects. Fortunate may we call ourselves to have been born 
in an age so productive of eloquence, so rich in erudition. 
Neither of us would be excluded, or hooted at, on canvassing 
for these honours. He who can think dispassionately and 
deeply as I do, is great as I am ; none other : but his opinions 
are at freedom to diverge from mine, as mine are from his ; 
and indeed, on recollection, I never loved those most who 
thought with me, but those rather who deemed my sentiments 
worth discussion, and who corrected me with frankness and 
affability. 



MARCUS TULLTUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 403 

CiESAR. 

Lucullus ! you perhaps have taken the wiser and better 
part, certainly the pleasanter. I can not argue with you : I 
would gladly hear one who could, but you again more gladly. 
I should think unworthily of you if I thought you capable of 
yielding or receding. I do not even ask you to keep our con- 
versation long a secret ; so greatly does it preponderate in your 
favour; so much more of gentleness, of eloquence, and of 
argument. I came hither with one soldier, avoiding the cities, 
and sleeping at the villa of a confidential friend. To-night I 
sleep in yours, and, if your dinner does not disturb me, shall 
sleep soundly. You go early to rest, I know. 

LUCULLUS. 

Not however by daylight. Be assured, Caius Julius, that 
greatly as your discourse afflicts me, no part of it shall escape 
my lips. If you approach the city with arms, with arms I 
meet you ; then your denouncer and enemy, at present your 
host and confident. 

OfflSAR. 

I shall conquer you. 

LUCULLUS. 

That smile would cease upon it : you sigh already. 

CESAR. 

Yes, Lucullus, if I am oppressed I shall overcome my 
oppressor : I know my army and myself. A sigh escaped me ; 
and many more will follow : but one transport will rise amid 
them, when, vanquisher of my enemies and avenger of my 
dignity, I press again the hand of I^^^his, mindful of 
this day. ^on,*^ 1 * 



MAECUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICEEO. 



The last calamities of our country, my brother Quinctus, 
have again united us ; and something like the tenderness of 
earlier clays appears to have returned, in the silence of ambition 
and in the subsidence of hope. It has frequently occurred to 
me how different we are from the moment when the parental 
roof bursts asunder, as it were, and the inmates are scattered 

dd2 



404 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

abroad, and build up here and there new families. Many, 
who before lived in amity and concord, are then in the 
condition of those who, receiving intelligence of a shipwreck, 
collect at once for plunder, and quarrel on touching the first 
fragment. 

QUINCTUS. 

We never disagreed on the division of any property, unless 
indeed the state and its honours may be considered as such ; 
and although in regard to Csesar, our fortune drew us different 
ways latterly, and my gratitude made me, until your remon- 
strances and prayers prevailed, reluctant to abandon him, you 
will remember my anxiety to procure you the consulate and 
the triumph. You can not and never could suppose me 
unmindful of the signal benefits and high distinctions I have 
received from Csesar, or quite unreluctant to desert an army, 
for my services in which he often praised me to you, while I 
was in Britain and in Gaul. Such moreover was his 
generosity, he did not erase my name from his Commentaries, 
for having abandoned and opposed his cause. My joy there- 
for ought not to be unmingled at his violent death, to whom 
I am indebted not only for confidence and command, not only 
for advancement and glory, but also for immortality. When 
you yourself had resolved on leaving Italy to follow Cneius 
Pompeius, you were sensible, as you told me, that my obliga- 
tions to Csesar should at least detain me in Italy. Our 
disputes, which among men who reason will be frequent, were 
always amicable : our political views have always been similar, 
and generally the same. You indeed were somewhat more 
aristocratical an(J senatorial : and this prejudice hath ruined 
both. As ifjleso immortal gods took a pleasure in confounding 
us by the diknculty of our choice, they placed the best men at 
the head of the worst cause. Decimus Brutus and Porcius 
Cato held up the train of Sylla ; for the late civil wars were 
only a continuation of those which the old dictator seemed, 
for a time, to have extinguished in blood and ruins. His 
faction was in authority when you first appeared at Rome ; 
and although among your friends and sometimes in public, 
you have spoken as a Roman should speak of Caius Marius, 
a respect for Pompeius, the most insincere of mortals, made 
you silent on the merits of Sertorius ; than whom there never 
was a better man in private life, a magistrate more upright, a 
general more vigilant, a citizen more zealous for the prerogative 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 405 

of our republic. Caius Caesar, the later champion of the same 
party, overcame difficulties almost equally great, and having 
acted upon a more splendid theater, may perhaps appear a stil 
greater character. 

MARCUS. 

He will seem so to those only who place temperance and 
prudence, fidelity and patriotism, aside from the component 
parts of greatness. Caesar, of all men, knew best when to 
trust fortune : Sertorius never trusted her at all, nor ever 
marched a step along a path he had not patiently and well 
explored. The best of Romans slew the one, the worst the 
other. The death of Caesar w T as that winch the wise and 
virtuous would most deprecate for themselves and for their 
children; that of Sertorius what they would most desire. 
And since, Quinctus, we have seen the ruin of our country, 
and her enemies are intent on ours, let us be grateful that the 
last years of life have neither been useless nor inglorious, and 
that it is likely to close, not under the condemnation of such 
citizens as Cato and Brutus, but as Lepidus and Antonius. 
It is with more sorrow than asperity that T reflect on Caius 
Caesar. ! had Ins heart been unambitious as his style, had 
he been as prompt to succour his country as to enslave her, 
how great, how incomparably great, were he ! Then perhaps 
at this hour, Quinctus, and in this villa, we should have 
enjoyed his humorous and erudite discourse ; for no man ever 
tempered so seasonably and so justly the materials of conver- 
sation. How graceful was he! how unguarded! His whole 
character was uncovered ; as we represent the bodies of heroes 
and of gods. Two years ago, at this very season, on the third 
of the Saturnalia, he came hither spontaneously and unex- 
pectedly to dine with me ; and although one of his attendants 
read to him, as -he desired while he was bathing, the verses 
on him and Mamurra, he retained his usual good-humour, 
and discoursed after dinner on many points of literature, with 
admirable ease and judgment. Him I shall see again ; and, 
while he acknowledges my justice, I shall acknowledge his 
virtues, and contemplate them unclouded. I shall see again 
our father, and Mutius Scaevola, and you, and our sons, and 
the ingenuous and faithful Tyro. He alone has power over 
my life, if any has ; for to him I confide my writings. And 
our worthy Marcus Brutus will meet me, whom I would 
embrace among the first : for, if I have not done him an 



406 MARCTJS TULLIUS AND QTJINCTUS CICERO. 

injury, I have caused him one. Had I never lived, or had I 
never excited his envy, he might perhaps have written as I 
have done ; but for the sake of avoiding me he caught both 
cold and fever. Let us pardon him ; let us love him. With 
a weakness that injured his eloquence, and with a softness of 
soul that sapped the constitution of our state, he is no 
unworthy branch of that family which will be remembered the 
longest among men. 

happy day, when I shall meet my equals, and when my 
inferiors shall trouble me no more ! 

Man thinks it miserable to be cut off in the midst of his 
projects : he should rather think it miserable to have formed 
them. For the one is his own action, the other is not ; the 
one was subject from the beginning to disappointments and 
vexations, the other ends them. And what truly is that 
period of life in which we are not in the midst of our projects? 
They spring up only the more rank and wild, year after year, 
from their extinction or change of form, as herbage from the 
corruption and dying down of herbage. 

1 will not dissemble that I upheld the senatorial cause for 
no other reason than that my dignity was to depend on it. 
My first enthusiasm was excited by Marius ; my first poem 
was written on him. We were proud of him as a fellow- 
citizen of Arpinum. Say no more of him. It is only the 
most generous nature that grows more generous by age : 
Marius, like Pompeius, grew more and more austere. I 
praised his exploits in the enthusiasm of youth and poetry ; 
either of which is sufficient excuse for many errors ; and both 
together may extort somewhat more than pardon, when valour 
in a fellow-townsman is the exciter of our praise. But, sitting 
now in calmer judgment, we see him stript of his victorious 
arms and sevenfold consulship; we see him in his native 
rudeness, selfishness, and ferocity ; we see him the murderer 
of his colleague in the consulship, of his comrade in the camp. 
Scarcely can we admire even the severity of his morals, when 
its principal use was to enforce the discipline needful to the 
accomplishment of his designs. 

QUINCTUS. 

Marius is an example that a liberal education is peculiarly 
necessary where power is almost unlimited. Quiet, social, 
philosophical intercourse, can alone restrict that tendency to 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 407 

arrogance which war encourages, and alone can inculcate that 
abstinence from wrong and spoliation which we have lately seen 
exercised more intemperately than even by Marius or by Sylla, 
and carried into the farms and villas of ancient friends and 
close connections. 

MARCUS. 

Had the party of our townsman been triumphant, and the 
senate (as it would have been) abolished, I should never have 
had a Catilinarian conspiracy to quell, and few of my best 
orations would have been delivered. 

QUINCTUS. 

Do you believe that the Marian faction would have annulled 
our order ? 

MARCUS. 

I believe that their safety would have required its ruin, and 
that their vengeance, not to say their equity, would have 
accomplished it. The civil war was of the senate against the 
equestrian order and the people, and was maintained by the 
wealth of the patricians, accumulated in the time of Sylla, 
from the proscription of all whom violence made, or avarice 
called, its adversaries. It would have been necessary to con- 
fiscate the whole property of the order, and to banish its 
members from Italy. Any measures short of these would have 
been inadequate to compensate the people for their losses ; nor 
would there have been a sufficient pledge for the maintenance 
of tranquillity. The exclusion of three hundred families 
from their estates, which they had acquired in great part 
by rapine, and their expulsion from a country which they had 
inundated with blood, would have prevented that partition- 
treaty, whereby are placed in the hands of three men the 
properties and lives of all. 

.There should in no government be a contrariety of interests. 
Checks are useful : but it is better to stand in no need of them. 
Bolts and bars are good things : but would you establish a 
college of thieves and robbers to try how good they are ? 
Misfortune has taught me many truths, which a few years ago 
I should have deemed suspicious and dangerous. The fall of 
Eome and of Carthage, the form of whose governments was 
almost the same, has been occasioned by the divisions of the 
ambitious in their senates : for we conscript fathers call that 
ambition which the lower ranks call avarice. In fact the only 



408 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QTJINCTUS CICERO. 

difference is, that the one wears fine linen, the other coarse ; 
one covets the government of Asia, the other a cask of vinegar. 
The people were indifferent which side prevailed, until their 
houses in that country were reduced to ashes ; in this, were 
delivered to murderers and gamesters. 

QUINCTUS. 

Painful is it to reflect, that the greatness of most men 
originates from what has been taken by fraud or violence out 
of the common stock. The greatness of states, on the contrary, 
depends on the subdivision of property, chiefly of the landed, 
in moderate portions; on the frugal pay of functionaries, 
chiefly of those who possess a property; and on unity of 
interests and designs. Where provinces are allotted, not for 
the public service, but for the enrichment of private families, 
where consuls wish one thing and tribunes wish another, how 
can there be prosperity or safety? If Carthage, whose 
government (as you observe) much resembled ours, had 
allowed the same rights generally to the inhabitants of Africa ; 
had she been as zealous in civilising as in coercing them ; she 
would have ruined our commonwealth and ruled the world. 
Rome found the rest of Italy more cultivated than herself, 
but corrupted for the greater part by luxury, ignorant of 
military science, and more patient of slavery than of toil. 
She conquered ; and in process of time infused into them 
somewhat of her spirit, and imparted to them somewhat 
of her institutions. Nothing was then wanting to her 
policy, but only to grant voluntarily what she might have 
foreseen they would unite to enforce, and to have constituted 
a social body in Italy. This would have rendered her 
invincible. Ambition would not permit our senators to divide 
with others the wealth and aggrandisement arising from 
authority : and hence our worst citizens are become our rulers. 
The same error was committed by Sertorius, from purer 
principles, when he created a senate in Spain, but admitted no 
Spaniard. The practice of disinterestedness, the force of 
virtue, in despite of so grievous an affront, united to him the 
bravest and most honorable of nations. If he had granted 
to them what was theirs by nature, and again due for benefits, 
he would have had nothing else to regret, than that they had 
so often broken our legions, and covered our commanders with 
shame. 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 409 

"What could be expected in our country, where tlie aris- 
tocracy possessed in the time of Sylla more than half the land, 
and disposed of all the revenues and offices arising from our 
conquests ? It would be idle to remark that the armies were 
paid out of them, when those armies were but the household 
of the rich, and necessary to their safety. On such reasoning 
there is no clear profit, no property, no possession : we can 
not eat without a cook, without a husbandman, without a 
butcher : these take a part of our money. The armies were 
no less the armies of the aristocracy than the money that paid 
and the provinces that supplied them ; no less, in short, than 
their beds and bolsters. 

Why could not we have done from policy and equity what 
has been and often will be done, under another name, by 
favour and injustice ? On the agrarian law we never were 
unanimous : yet Tiberius Gracchus had among the upholders 
of his plan the most prudent, the most equitable, and the most 
dignified in the republic : Lselius, the friend of Scipio, whose 
wisdom and moderation you have lately extolled in your 
dialogue; Crassus, then Pontifex Maximus; and Appius 
Claudius, who resolved by this virtuous and patriotic deed to 
wipe away the stain left for ages on his family, by its licen- 
tiousness, pride, and tyranny. To these names another must 
be added ; a name which we have been taught from our youth 
upward to hold in reverence, the greatest of our jurists, Mutius 
Scsevola. The adversaries of the measure can not deny the 
humanity and liberality of its provisions, by which those who 
might be punished for violating the laws should be indemnified 
for the loss of the possessions they held illegally, and these 
possessions should be distributed among the poorer families ; 
not for the purpose of corrupting their votes, but that they 
should have no temptation to sell them. 

You smile, Marcus ! 

MAECUS. 

For this very tiling the Conscript Fathers were inimical to 
Tiberius Gracchus, and accused him of an attempt to intro- 
duce visionary and impracticable changes into the common- 
wealth. Among the elder of his partisans some were called 
ambitious, some prejudiced ; among the younger, some were 
madmen, the rest traitors; just as they were protected or 
unprotected by the power of their families or the influence of 
their friends. 



410 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS C1CE110. 

QUINCTUS. 

The most equitable and necessary law promulgated of latter 
times in our republic, was that by Caius Gracchus, who, finding 
all our magistratures in the disposal of the senate, and wit- 
nessing the acquittal of all criminals whose peculations and 
extortions had ruined our provinces and shaken our dominion, 
transferred the judicial power to the equestrian order. Cepio's 
law, five-and-twenty years afterward, was an infringement of 
this ; and the oration of Lucius Crassus in its favour, bearing 
with it the force of genius and the stamp of authority, formed 
in great measure, as you acknowledge, both your politics and 
your eloquence. The intimacy of Crassus with Aculeo, the 
husband of our maternal aunt, inclined you perhaps to follow 
the more readily his opinions, and to set a higher value, than 
you might otherwise have done, on his celebrated oration. 



You must remember, my brother, that I neither was nor 
professed myself to be adverse to every agrarian law, though I 
opposed with all my energy and authority that agitated by 
Eullus. On which occasion I represented the two Gracchi as 
most excellent men, inflamed by the purest love of the Roman 
people, in their proposal to divide among the citizens what 
was unquestionably their due. I mentioned them as those on 
whose wisdom and institutions many of the solider parts in 
our government were erected ; and I opposed the particular 
law at that time laid before the people, as leading to the 
tyranny of a decemvirate. The projects of Caesar and 
Pompeius on this business were unjust and pernicious ; those 
of Gracchus I now acknowledge to have been equitable to the 
citizens and salutary to the state. Unless I made you this 
concession, how could I defend my own conduct a few months 
ago, in persuading the senate to distribute among the soldiers 
of the fourth legion and the legion of Mars, for their services 
to the republic, those lands in Campania which Caesar and 
Pompeius would have allotted in favour of their partisans in 
usurpation ? Caius Gracchus on the contrary would look aside 
to no advantage or utility ; and lost the most powerful of 
his friends, adherents, and relatives, by his inflexible recti- 
tude. Beside those letters of his which are published, I 
remember one in answer to his mother, which Scsevola was 
fond of quoting, and of which he possessed the original. 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 411 

QUINCTUS. 

Have we the transcript of it ? 

MARCUS. 

The words of Cornelia, as well as I can recollect them, are 
these : 

" I have received the determination of Lselius and Scipio, in 
which they agree, as usual. He tells me that he never shall 
cease to be the advocate of so righteous a cause, if you will 
consent that the soldiers, who subdued for our republic the 
cities of Carthage and Numantia, shall partake in the public 
benefit. That Scipio is well aware how adverse the proposal 
would render the senate to him ; and at the same time how 
unpopular he shall be among his fellow citizens at Rome, which 
may excite a suspicion in bad and thoughtless men that he 
would gratify the army in defiance of each authority. He 
requests you to consider that these soldiers are for the greater 
part somewhat elderly ; and that granting them possessions, on 
which they may sit down and rest, can not be the means an 
ambitious man would take for his aggrandisement. He wishes 
to render them inclined to peace, not alert for disturbances, 
and as good citizens as they have been good soldiers ; and he 
entreats you, by the sanctity of your office, not to deprive them 
of what they should possess in common with others, for no 
better reason than because they defended by their valour the 
property of all. If you assent to this proposal, it will be 
unnecessary for him, he says, to undertake the settlement of 
the Commonwealth, referred to him by the Senate, not with- 
out danger, my dear Caius, though rather to his life than to 
his dignity. So desirable a measure, he adds, ought never to 
be carried into effect, nor supported too pertinaciously, by the 
general of an army." 

QUINCTUS. 

I never knew of this letter. Scsevola, I imagine, would not 
give it out of his hands for any one to read, in public or at 
home. Do you remember as much of the answer ? 

MARCUS. 

I think I may do : for the language of the Gracchi was 
among my exercises : and I wonder that you have not heard 
me rehearse both pieces, in the practice of declamation. Caius 
answers his mother thus : 

" Mother, until you have exerted your own eloquence to 



412 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 

persuade me, if indeed you participate in the opinions of 
Leelius, never shall I agree that the soldiers of Scipio have an 
allotment of land in Italy. When we withdraw our veterans 
from Spain and Africa, barbarian kings will tread upon our 
footsteps, efface the traces of our civilisation, and obliterate 
the memorials of our glory. The countries will be useful to 
us : even if they never were to be, we must provide against 
their becoming injurious and pernicious, as they would be 
under any other power. Either we should not fight an enemy, 
or we should fight until we have overcome him. Afterward 
to throw away what we have taken, is the pettishness of a 
child ; to drop it is the imbecility of a suckling. Nothing of 
wantonness or frowardness is compatible with warfare, or con- 
genial with the Roman character. To relinquish a conquest is 
an acknowledgment of injustice, or incapacity, or fear. 

" Our soldiers, under the command of Scipio, have subdued 
two countries, of a soil more fertile than ours, and become by 
a series of battles, and by intestine discord, less populous : let 
them divide and enjoy it. The beaten should always pay the 
expenses of the war, and the instigators should be deprived of 
their possessions and their lives. Which, I pray you, is the 
more reasonable ; that the Roman people shall incur debts by 
having conquered, or that the weight of those debts shall fall 
totally on the vanquished ? Either the war was unjust against 
them, or the conditions of peace against us. Our citizens are 
fined and imprisoned (since their debts begin with fine and 
end with imprisonment) for having hurt them. What ! shall 
w r e strike and run away ? or shall our soldier, when he hath 
stripped the armour from his adversary, say, ' No, I will not 
take this : I will go to Rome, and suit myself with better ! ' 

" Let the army be compensated for its toils and perils : let 
it enjoy the fruit of its triumphs on the soil that bore them : 
for never will any new one keep the natives in such awe. 
Those who fight for slavery should at all events have it : they 
should be sold as bondmen. The calamities of Carthage and 
of Numantia strike the bosom even of the conqueror. How 
many brave, how many free, how many wise and virtuous, 
perished within their walls ! But the petty princes and their 
satellites should be brought to market : not one of them should 
have a span of earth, or a vest, or a carcase of his own. 
Spaniards and Africans, who prefer the domination of a 
tetrarch to the protection of the laws, ought to be sold for the 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICEItO. 413 

benefit of our legionaries in Spain and Africa, whether by the 
gang or the dozen, whether for the mine or the arena. "While 
any such are in existence, and while their country, of which 
they are unworthy, opens regions unexplored before us and 
teeming with fertility, I will not permit that the victorious 
army partake in the distribution of our home domains. Write 
this to Laelius ; and write it for Scipio's information, imploring 
him so to act as that he never may enfeeble the popular voice, 
nor deaden the world's applause. Eemind him, O mother, for 
we both love liim, how little it would become a good citizen 
and brave soldier, to raise up any cause why he should have 
to guard himself against the suspicions and stratagems of the 
senate/' 

QUINCTUS. 

The attempt to restore the sounder of our institutions, was 
insolently and falsely called innovation. For, from the building 
of our city, a part of the conquered lands was sold by auction 
under the spear ; an expression which hath since been used to 
designate the same transaction within the walls ; another part 
was holden in common : a third was leased out at an easy rate 
to the poorer citizens. So that formerly the lower and inter- 
mediate class possessed by right the exclusive benefit of two- 
thirds, and an equal chance (wherever there was industry and 
frugality) of the other. Latterly, by various kinds of vexation 
and oppression, they had been deprived of nearly the whole. 

Cornelia was not a woman of a heart so sickly tender as to 
awaken its sympathies at all hours, and to excite and pamper 
in it a false appetite. Like the rest of her family, she cared 
little or nothing for the applauses and opinions of the people : 
she loved justice : and it was on justice that she wished her 
children to lay the foundation of their glory. This ardour was 
inextinguished in her by the blood of her eldest son. She saw 
his name placed where she wished it ; and she pointed it out 
to Caius. Scandalous words may be written on the wall under 
it, by dealers in votes and traffickers in loyalty ; but little is 
the worth of a name that perishes by chalk or charcoal. 



The moral, like the physical body, hath not always the same 
wants in the same degree. We put off or on a greater or less 
quantity of clothes according to the season ; and it is to the 
season that we must accommodate ourselves in government, 



414 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

wherein there are only a few leading principles which are never 
to be disturbed. I now perceive that the laws of society in 
one thing resemble the laws of perspective : they require that 
what is below should rise gradually, and that what is above 
should descend in the same proportion, but not that they 
should touch. Stil less do they inform us, what is echoed in 
our ears by new masters from camp and schoolroom, that the 
wisest and best should depend on the weakest and worst; and 
that, when individuals, however ignorant of moral discipline 
and impatient of self-restraint, are deemed adequate to the 
management of their affairs at twenty years, a state should never 
be ; that boys should come out of pupilage, that men should 
return to it ; that people in their actions and abilities so con- 
temptible as the triumvirate, should become by their own 
appointment our tutors and guardians, and shake their scourges 
over Marcus Brutus, Marcus Yarro, Marcus Tullius. The 
Eomans are hastening back, I see, to the government of here- 
ditary kings, whether by that name or another is immaterial, 
which no virtuous and dignified man, no philosopher of what- 
ever sect, hath recommended, approved, or tolerated ; and than 
which no moralist, no fabulist, no visionary, no poet, satirical 
or comic, no Pescennine jester, no dwarf or eunuch (the most 
privileged of privileged classes), no runner at the side of a 
triumphal car, in the uttermost extravagance of his licentiousness, 
has imagined anything more absurd, more indecorous, or more 
insulting. What else indeed is the reason why a nation is 
called barbarous by the Greeks and us ? This alone stamps 
the character upon it, standing for whatever is monstrous, for 
whatever is debased. 

What a shocking sight should we consider an old father of 
a family led in chains along the public street, with boys and 
prostitutes shouting after him ! and should we not retire from 
it quickly and anxiously? A sight greatly more shocking 
now presents itself : an ancient nation is reduced to slavery, 
by those who vowed before the people and before the altars to 
defend her. And is it hard for us, Quinctus, to turn away 
our eyes from this abomination ? or is it necessary for a Gaul 
or an Illyrian to command us that we close them on it. 

QUINCTUS. 

No, Marcus, no. Let us think upon it as our forefathers 
always thought, and our friends lately. 



MAItCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 415 

MARCUS. 

I am your host, my brother, and must recall you awhile to 
pleasanter ideas. How beautiful is this Tormian coast ! how 
airy this villa ! Ah whither have I beckoned your reflec- 
tions ! it is the last of ours perhaps we may ever see. Do you 
remember the races of our children along the sands, and their 
consternation when Tyro cried c the Lcestrygons ! the Lcestry- 
gons ! } He little thought he prophesied in Ins mirth, and all 
that poetry has feigned of these monsters should in so few 
years be accomplished. The other evening, an hour or two 
before sunset, I sailed quietly along the coast, for there was 
little wind, and the stillness on shore made my heart faint 
within me. I remembered how short a time ago I had con- 
versed with Cato around the villa of Lucullus, whose son, such 
was the modesty of the youth, followed rather than accom- 
panied us. Gods ! how little then did I foresee or appre- 
hend that the guardianship of this young man, and also of 
Cato's son, would within one year have devolved on me, by the 
deplorable death of their natural protector. A. fading purple 
invested by degrees the whole promontory : I looked up at 
Misenus, and at those solitary and silent walks, enlivened so 
lately by friendship and philosophy. The last indeed of the 
thoughts w r e communicated were sorrowful and despondent, 
but, heavy as they were, they did not pain me like those which 
were now coming over me in my loneliness on the sea. For 
there only is the sense of solitude where everything we behold 
is unlike us, and where we have been accustomed to meet our 
friends and equals. 

QUINCTUS. 

There is something of softness, not unallied to sorrow, in 
these mild winter days and their humid sunshine. 



I know not, Quinctus, by what train or connection of ideas 
they lead me rather to the past than to the future ; unless it 
be that, when the fibers of our bodies are relaxed, as they must 
be in such weather, the spirits fall back easily upon reflection, 
and are slowly incited to expectation. The memory of those 
great men who consolidated our republic by their wisdom, 
exalted it by their valour, and protected and defended it by 
their constancy, stands not alone nor idly : they draw us after 
them, they place us with them. Quinctus ! I wish I could 



416 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERtf. 

impart to you my firm persuasion, that after death we shall 
enter into their society; and what matter if the place of our 
reunion be not the capitol or the forum, be not Elysian 
meadows or Atlantic ilands ? Locality has nothing to do 
with mind once free. Carry this thought perpetually with 
you ; and Death, whether you believe it terminates our whole 
existence or otherwise, will lose, I will not say its terrors, 
for the brave and wise have none, but its anxieties and 
inquietudes. 

QUINCTUS. 

Brother, when I see that many dogmas in religion have 
been invented to keep the intellect in subjection, I may fairly 
doubt the rest. 

MARCUS. 

Yes, if any emolument be derived from them to the colleges 
of priests. But surely he deserves the dignity and the worship 
of a god, who first instructed men that by their own volition 
they may enjoy eternal happiness ; that the road to it is most 
easy and most beautiful, such as any one would follow by 
preference, even if nothing desirable were at the end of it. 
Neither to give nor to take offence, are surely the two things 
most delightful in human life ; and it is by these two things 
that eternal happiness may be attained. We shall enjoy a 
future state accordingly as we have employed our intellect and 
our affections. Perfect bliss can be expected by few : but 
fewer will be so miserable as they have been here. 

QUINCTUS. 

A belief to the contrary, if we admit a future life, would 
place the gods beneath us in their best properties, justice and 
beneficence. 

MARCUS. 

Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason : and I see 
not why we should not gratify it as unreluctantly as the baser. 
Religion does not call upon us to believe the fables of the 
vulgar, but on the contrary to correct them. 

QUINCTUS. 

Otherwise, overrun as we are in Rome by foreners of every 
nation, and ready to receive, as we have been, the buffooneries 
of Syrian and Egyptian priests, our citizens may within a few 
years become not only the dupes, but the tributaries, of these 
impostors. The Syrian may scourge us until we join him in 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 417 

his lamentation of Adonis ; and the Egyptian may tell us that 
it is unholy to eat a chicken, and holy to eat an egg ; while a 
sly rogue of Judaea whispers in our ear, " that is superstition : 
you go to heaven if you pay me a tenth of your harvests." 
This, I have heard Cneius Pompeius relate, is done in Judsea. 

MARCUS. 

True, but the tenth paid all the expenses both of civil 
government and religious ; for the magistracy was (if such an 
expression can be repeated with seriousness) theocratical. In 
time of peace a decimation of property would be intolerable.* 
Pisistratus and Hiero did exact it ; but they were usurpers, 
and the exercise of their power was no more legitimate than 
the assumption. Among us likewise the tribunes of the 
people have complained, in former times, that taxes levied on 
the commons went to abase and ruin them. Certainly the 
senate did not contribute in the same proportion; but the 
commons were taxed out of the produce of what had been 
allotted to them, in the partition of conquered lands ; and it 
was only the stipend of the soldier for preserving by arms the 
property that his arms had won. The Jews have been always 
at war ; natives of a sterile country and borderers of a fertile 
one, acute, meditative, melancholy, morose. I know not 
whether we ourselves have performed such actions as they 
have, or whether any nation has fought with such resolution 
and pertinacity. We laugh at their worship ; they abominate 
ours. In this I think we are the wiser ; for surely on specu- 
lative points it is better to laugh than to abominate. But 
whence have you brought your eggs and chickens ? I have 
heard our Yarro tell many stories about the Egyptian ordi- 
nances ; but I do not remember this among them ; nor indeed 
did his friend Turranius, who resided long in that country, and 
was intimately versed in its antiquities, nor his son Manius, a 
young man of much pleasantry, ever relate it in conversation 
when we met at Yarro's. 

QUINCTUS. 

Indeed the distinction seems a little too absurd, even for the 
worshipers of cats and crocodiles. Perhaps I may have 

* The Spaniards had been a refractory and rebellious - people, and 
therefor were treated, we may presume, with little lenity : yet T. Livius 
tells us that a part of Spain paid a tenth, another part a twentieth. Lib. 
xliii. See also Tacitus on the subject of taxation, Ann. xiii., and Burmann 
Be Vectigali. 

E E 



418 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QTJINCTUS CICERO. 

wronged them : the nation I may indeed have forgotten, but I 
am certain of the fact : I place it in the archives of super- 
stition, you may deposit it in its right cell. Among the 
Athenians the Priestess of Minerva was entitled to a measure 
of barley, a measure of wheat, and an obol, on every birth 
and death.* Some eastern nations are so totally subjected to 
the priesthood, that a member of it is requisite at birth, at 
death, and, by Thalassius ! at marriage itself. He can even 
inflict pains and penalties; he can oblige you to tell him all 
the secrets of the heart ; he can call your wife to him, your 
daughter to him, your blooming and innocent son; he can 
absolve from sin ; he can exclude from pardon. 

MARCUS. 

Now, Quinctus, egg and chicken, cat and crocodile, disappear 
and vanish : you repeat impossibilities : mankind, in its lowest 
degradation, has never been depressed so low. The savage 
would strangle the impostor that attempted it; the civilised 
man would scourge him and hiss him from society. Come, 
; come, brother ! we may expect such a state of things, when- 
ever we find united the genius of the Cimmerian and the 
courage of the Troglodyte. Eeligions wear out, cover them 
with gold or case them with iron as you will. Jupiter is now 
less powerful in Crete than when he was in his cradle there, 
and spreads fewer terrors at Dodona than a shepherd's cur. 
Proconsuls have removed from Greece, from Asia, from Sicily, 
the most celebrated statues ; and it is doubted at last whether 
those deities are in heaven whom a cart and a yoke of oxen 
have carried away on earth. When the civil wars are over, 
and the minds of men become indolent and inactive, as is 
always the case after great excitement, it is not improbable that 
some novelties may be attempted in religion : but, as my 
prophecies in the whole course of the late events have been 
accomplished, so you may believe me when I prognosticate 
that our religion, although it should be disfigured and deterio- 
rated, will continue in many of its features, in many of its 
pomps and ceremonies, the same. Sibylline books will never 
be wanting while fear and curiosity are inherent in the 
composition of man. And there is something consolatory in 
this idea of duration and identity : for whatever be your 
philosophy, you must acknowledge that it is pleasant to think, 

* Aristot. (Econom. 1. 2. 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 419 

although you know not wherefor, that, when we go away 
things visible, like things intellectual, will remain in great 
measure as we left them. A slight displeasure would be felt 
by us, if we were certain that after our death our houses would 
be taken down, though not only no longer inhabited by us, but 
probably not destined to remain in the possession of our 
children; and that even these vineyards, fields, and gardens, 
were about to assume another aspect. 

QUINCTUS. 

The sea and the barren rocks will remain for ever as they 
are ; whatever is lovely changes. Misrule and slavery may 
convert our fertile plains into pestilential marshes • and who- 
ever shall exclaim against the authors and causes of such 
devastation, may be proscribed, slain, or exiled. Enlightened 
and virtuous men (painfullest of thoughts !) may condemn 
him : for a love of security accompanies a love of study, and 
that by degrees is adulation which was acquiescence. Cruel 
men have always at their elbow the supporters of arbitrary 
power ; and although the cruel are seldom solicitous in what 
manner they may be represented to posterity, yet, if anyone 
among them be rather more so than is customary, some 
projector will whisper in his ear an advice like this. " Oppress, 
fine, imprison, and torture, those who (you have reason to 
suspect) are or may be philosophers or historians : so that, if 
they mention you at all, they will mention you with indignation 
and abhorrence. Your object is attained : few will implicitly 
believe them ; almost everyone will acknowledge that their 
faith should be suspected, as there are proofs that they wrote 
in irritation. This is better than if they spoke of you 
slightingly, or cursorily, or evasively. By employing a hang- 
man extraordinary, you purchase in perpetuity the title of a 
clement prince." ' 

MARCUS. 

Quinctus, you make me smile, by bringing to my recollection 
that, among the marauders of Pindenissus, was a fellow called 
by the Eomans Poedirupa, from a certain resemblance no less 
to his name than to his character. He commanded in a desert 
and sandy district, which his father and grandfather had 
enlarged by violence ; for the family were, from time immemo- 
rial, robbers and assassins. Several schools had once been 
established in those parts, remote from luxury and seduction ; 

E E m 



420 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 

and several good and learned men taught in them, having fled 
from Mithridates. Fcedirupa assumed on a sudden the air and 
demeanour of a patriot, and hired one Gentius to compose his 
rhapsodies on the love of our country, with liberty to promise 
what he pleased. Gentius put two hundred pieces of silver on 
his mule, rode to the schools, exhibited his money, and 
promised the same gratuity to every scholar who would arm 
and march forth against the enemy. The teachers breathed a 
free and pure spirit, and, although they well knew the knavery 
of Gentius, seconded him in his mission. Gentius, as was 
ordered, wrote down the names of those who repeated the most 
frequently that of country, and the least so that of Fcedirupa. 
Even rogues are restless for celebrity. The scholars performed 
great services against the enemy. On their return they were 
disarmed; the promises of Tcedirupa were disavowed; the 
teachers were thrown into prison, accused of violating the 
ancient laws, of perverting the moral and religious principles, 
and finally of abusing the simplicity of youth, by illusory and 
empty promises. Gentius drew up against them the bills of 
indictment, and offered to take care of their libraries and 
cellars while they remained in prison. Fcedirupa cast them 
into dungeons ; but, drawing a line of distinction much finer 
than the most subtile of them had ever done, " I will not kill 
them/'' said he ; "I will only frighten them to death." He 
became at last somewhat less cruel, and starved them. Only 
one was sentenced to lose his head. Gentius comforted him 
upon the scaffold, by reminding him how much worse he would 
have fared under Mithridates, who would not only have com- 
manded his head to be cut off, but also to be fixed on a pike, 
and by assuring him that, instead of such wanton barbarity, 
he himself would carry it to the widow and her children, 
within an hour after their conference. The former words 
moved him little ; he hardly heard them ; but his heart and 
his brain throbbed in agony at the sound of children, of widow. 
He threw his head back ; tears rolled over his temples, and 
dripped from his grey hair. " Ah my dear friend," said Gentius, 
" have I unwittingly touched a tender part? Be manful; dry 
your eyes ; the children are yours no longer ; why be concerned 
for what you can never see again? My good old friend," 
added he, " how many kind letters to me has this ring of yours 
sealed formerly ! " Then, lifting up the hand, he drew it 
slowly off, overcome by excess of grief. It fell into his 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 421 

bosom, and to moderate his grief he was forced to run away, 
looking through the corner of his eye at the executioner. The 
rogue was stoned to death by those he had betrayed, not long 
before my arrival in the province; and an arrow from an 
unseen hand did justice on Foedirupa. 

QunrcTUS. 

I have seen in my life-time several rogues upon their crosses, 
although few, if any, so deserving of the punishment as Gentius 
and his colleague. Spectacles of higher interest are nearer 
and more attractive. It would please me greatly if either the 
decline of evening: or the windings of the coast would allow 
me a view of Misenus : and I envy you, Marcus, the hour or 
two before sunset, which enabled you to contemplate it from 
the unruffled sea at your leisure. Has no violence been offered 
to the retirement of Cornelia ? Are there any traces of her 
residence left amid our devastations, as there surely ought to 
be, so few years after her decease ? 

MARCUS. 

On that promontory her mansion is yet standing ; the same 
which Marius bought afterward, and which our friend Lucullus 
last inhabited ; and, whether from reverence of her virtues and 
exalted name, or that the gods preserve it as a monument of 
womanhood, its exterior is unchanged. Here she resided many 
years, and never would be induced to revisit Eome after the 
murder of her younger son. She cultivated a variety of 
flowers, naturalised exotic plants, and brought together trees 
from vale and mountain; trees unproductive of fruit, but 
affording her, in their superintendance and management, a 
tranquil expectant pleasure. " There is no amusement," said 
she, " so lasting and varied, so healthy and peaceful as 
horticulture." We read that the Babylonians and Persians were 
formerly much addicted to similar places of recreation. I have 
scarcely any knowledge in these matters ;* and the first time 
I went thither, I asked many questions of the gardener's boy, 
a child about nine years old. He thought me even more 
ignorant than I was, and said, among other such remarks, " I 
do not know what they call this plant at Eome^ or whether 
they have it there ; but it is among the commonest here, 

* " De hortis quod me admones, nee firi unquam valde cupidus. et nunc 
domus suppeditat raihi hortorum amoenitatem." Ad Q. Fratr. 1. 3. ep. 4. 



422 MAECUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS C1CEE0. 

beautiful as it is, and we call it cytisus." "Thank you, child \" 
said I, smiling ; " and," pointing toward two cypresses, u pray 
what do you call those high and gloomy trees at the extremity 
of the avenue, just above the precipice ? w " Others like 
them," replied he, " are called cypresses; but these, I know 
not why, have always been called Tiberius and Cams." 

QUINCTUS. 

Of all studies the most delightful and the most useful is 
biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface ; 
historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true : 
lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, 
the interest, and the utility of truth. 

MAECUS. 

I have collected facts about Cornelia, worth recording ■ and 
I would commemorate them the rather, as, while the Greeks 
have had among them no few women of abilities, we can 
hardly mention two. 

QUINCTUS. 

Yet ours have advantages which theirs had not. Did 
Cornelia die unrepining and contented ? 

MAECUS. 

She was firmly convinced to the last that an agrarian law 
would have been just and beneficial, and was consoled that 
her illustrious sons had discharged at once the debt of nature 
and of patriotism. Glory is a light that shines from us on 
others, and not from others on us. Assured that future ages 
would render justice to the memory of her children, Cornelia 
thought they had already received the highest approbation, 
when they had received their own. 

QUINCTUS. 

If anything was wanting, their mother gave it. 

MAECUS. 

No stranger of distinction left Italy without a visit to her. 
You would imagine that they, and that she particularly, would 
avoid the mention- of her sons : it was however the subject on 
which she most delighted to converse, and which she never 
failed to introduce on finding a worthy auditor. I have heard 
from our father and from Scsevola, both of whom in their 
adolescence had been present on such occasions, that she 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 423 

mentioned her children, no longer indeed with the calm com- 
placency and full content with which she showed them to the 
lady of Campania as her gems and ornaments, but with such 
an exultation of delight at their glory, as she would the heroes 
of antiquity. So little of what is painful in emotion did she 
exhibit at the recital, those who could not comprehend her 
magnanimity at first believed her maddened by her misfortunes; 
but so many signs of wisdom soon displayed themselves, such 
staidness and sedateness of demeanour, such serene majestic 
suavity, they felt as if some deity were present ; and when 
wonder and admiration and awe permitted them to lift up their 
eyes again toward her, they discovered from her's that the 
fondest of mothers had been speaking, the mother of the 
Gracchi. 

QUINCTUS. 

I wish you would write her life. 

MARCUS. 

Titus Pomponius may undertake it ; and Titus may live to 
accomplish it. All times are quiet times with him; the 
antagonist, the competitor of none ; the true philosopher ! 
He knows the worth of men and the weight of factions, 
and how little they merit the disturbance of our repose. Ah 
Quinctus ! that I never looked back until I came upon the 
very brink of the whirlpool ! that, drawing all my glory from 
my lungs, I find all my peace in exhaustion ! Our Atticus 
never did thus ; and he therefor may live to do what you 
propose for me, not indeed too late in the day, but with 
broken rest, and with zeal (I must acknowledge it) abated. 
Your remark on biography is just; yet how far below the 
truth is even the best representation of those whose minds the 
gods have illuminated ! How much greater would the greatest 
man appear, if anyone about him could perceive those innumer- 
able filaments of thought, w r hich break as they arise from the 
brain, and the slenderest of which is worth all the wisdom of 
many at whose discretion lies the felicity of nations ! This in 
itself is impossible ; but there are fewer who mark what appears 
on a sudden and disappears again (such is the conversation of 
the wise) than there are who calculate those stars that are now 
coming forth above us : scarcely one in several millions can 
apportion, to what is exalted in mind, its magnitude, place, 
and distance. We must be contented to be judged by that 



424 MAUCUS TULLITJS AND QTJINCTUS C1CEU0. 

which people can discern and handle : that which they can 
have among them most at leisure, is most likely to be well 
examined and duly estimated. Whence I am led to believe 
that my writings, and those principally which instruct men in 
their rights and duties, will obtain me a solider and more 
extensive reputation than I could have acquired in public life, 
by busier, harder, and more anxious labours. Public men 
appear to me to live in that delusion which Socrates, in the 
Plmdo, would persuade us is common to all our species. 
" We live in holes/'' says he, " and fancy that we are living in 
the highest parts of the earth. - " What he says physically 
I would say morally. Judge whether my observation is 
not at least as reasonable as his hypothesis ; and indeed, 
to speak ingenuously, whether I have not converted what is 
physically false and absurd into* what is morally true and 
important. 

QUINCTUS. 

True, beyond a question, and important as those whom it 
concerns will let it be. They who stand in high stations, wash 
for higher ; but they who have occupied the highest of all, 
often think with regret of some one pleasanter they left below. 
The most wonderful thing in human nature is the variance of 
knowledge and will, where no passion is the stimulant : 
whence that system of life is often chosen and persevered in, 
which a man is well convinced is neither the best for him nor 
the easiest. Pew can see clearly where their happiness lies ; 
and, in those who see it, you will scarcely find one who has 
the courage to pursue it. Every action must have its motive ; 
but weak motives are sufficient for weak minds ; and whenever 
we see one which we believed to be a stronger, moved habitually 
by what appears inadequate, we may be certain that there is 
(to bring a metaphor from the forest) more top than root. 
Servius Tullius, a prudent man, dedicated to Fortune what we 
call the narrow temple, with a statue in proportion, expressing 
his idea that Fortune in the condition of mediocrity is more 
reasonably than in any other the object of our vows. He 
could have given her as magnificent a name, and as magnifi- 
cent a residence, as any she possesses ; and you know she has 
many of both ; but he wished perhaps to try whether for once 
she would be as favorable to wisdom as to enterprise.* 

* Plutarch, in his Problems, offers several reasons, each different from 

this. 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 425 



If life allows us time for the experiment, let us also try it.* 
Sleep, which the Epicureans and others have represented as 
the image of death, is, we know, the repairer of activity and 
strength. If they spoke reasonably and consistently, they 
might argue from their own principles, or at least take the 
illustration from their own fancy, that death like sleep may 
also restore our powers, and in proportion to its universality 
and absoluteness. Pursuers as they are of pleasure, their 
unsettled and restless imagination loves rather to brood over 
an abyss, than to expatiate on places of amenity and composure. 
Just as sleep is the renovator of corporeal vigour, so, with 
their permission, I would believe death to be of the mind's ; 
that the body, to which it is attached rather from habitude 
than from reason, is little else than a disease to our immortal 
spirit; and that, like the remora, of which mariners tell 
marvels, it counteracts, as it were, both oar and sail, in the 
most strenuous advances we can make toward felicity. Shall 
we lament to feel this reptile drop off ? Or shall we not, on 
the contrary, leap with alacrity on shore, and offer up in 
gratitude to the gods whatever is left about us uncorroded and 
unshattered? A broken and abject mind is the thing least 
worthy of their acceptance. 

QUINCTUS. 

Brother, you talk as if there were a plurality of gods. 

MARCUS. 

I know not and care not how many there may be of them. 
Philosophy points to unity : but while we are here, we speak 
as those do who are around us, and employ in these matters 

. * That Cicero began to think a private life preferable to a public, and 
that his philosophical no less than his political opinions were unstabile, is 
shown nowhere so evidently as in the eighth book of his Epistles. " Nam 
omnem nostram de republica curam, cogitationem, de dicenda in senatu 
sententia, &c, abjechnus, et in Epicuri nos, adversarii nostri, castra con- 
jecimus." Several years before the date of this he writes to Atticus, 
" Malo in ilia tua sedicula quam habes sub imagine Aristotelis sedere, 
quam in istorum sella curuli, tecumque apud te ambulari quam cum eo 
quocum video esse ambulandum : sed de ista ambulatione sors viderit, aut 
siquis est qui curet deus." L. iv. E. ix. 

Demosthenes in his later days entertained the opinion that if there 
were two roads, the one leading to government, the other to death, a 
prudent man would choose the latter. 



426 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

the language of our country. Italy is not so fertile in hemlock 
as Greece ; yet a wise man wall dissemble half his wisdom on 
such a topic ; and I, as you remember, adopting the means of 
dialogue, have often delivered my opinions in the voice of 
others, and speak now as custom not as reason leads me. 

QUINCTUS. 

Marcus, I stil observe in you somewhat of aversion to 
Epicurus, a few of whose least important positions you have 
controverted in your dialogues : and I wish that, even there, 
you had been less irrisory, less of a pleader ; that you had 
been, in dispassionate urbanity, his follower. Such was also 
the opinion of two men the most opposite in other things, 
Brutus and Caesar. Religions may fight in the street or over 
the grave, Philosophy never should. We ought to forego the 
manners of the forum in our disquisitions, which if they con- 
tinue to be agitated as they have been, will be designated at 
last not only by foul epithets drawn from that unsober tub, 
but, as violence is apt to increase in fury until it falls from 
exhaustion, by those derived from war and bloodshed. I 
should not be surprised if they who write and reason on our 
calm domestic duties, on our best and highest interests, should 
hereafter be designated by some such terms as polemical and 
sarcastic. As horses start aside from objects they see imper- 
fectly, so do men. Enmities are excited by an indistinct view ; 
they would be allayed by conference. Look at any long 
avenue of trees by which the traveler on our principal high- 
ways is protected from the sun. Those at the beginning are 
wide apart ; but those at the end almost meet. Thus happens 
it frequently in opinions. Men, who were far asunder, come 
nearer and nearer in the course of life, if they have strength 
enough to quell, or good sense enough to temper and assuage, 
their earlier animosities. Were it possible for you to have 
spent an hour with Epicurus, you would have been delighted 
with him ; for his nature was like the better part of yours. 
Zeno set out from an opposite direction, yet they meet at last 
and shake hands. He who shows us how Pear may be reasoned 
with and pacified, how Death may be disarmed of terrors, how 
Pleasure may be united with Innocence and with Constancy, 
he who persuades us that Vice is painful and vindictive, and 
that Ambition, deemed the most manly of our desires, is the 
most childish and illusory, deserves our gratitude. Children 



MAUCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICEHO. 427 

would fall asleep before they had trifled so long as grave men 
do. If you must quarrel with Epicurus on the principal good, 
take my idea. The happy man is he who distinguishes the 
boundary between desire and delight, and stands firmly on the 
higher ground ; he who knows that pleasure not only is not 
possession, but is often to be lost and always to be endangered 
by it. In life, as in those prospects which if the sun were 
above the horizon we should see from hence, the objects covered 
with the softest light, and offering the most beautiful forms in 
the distance, are wearisome to attain, and barren. 

In one of your last letters, you told me that you had come 
over into the camp of your old adversary. 

MARCUS. 

I could not rest with him. As we pardon those reluctantly 
who destroy our family tombs, is it likely or reasonable that 
he should be forgiven, who levels to the ground the fabric to 
which they lead, and to which they are only a rude and 
temporary vestibule ? 

QUINCTUS. 

Socrates was heard with more attention, Pythagoras had 
more authority in his lifetime ; but no philosopher hath excited 
so much enthusiasm in those who never frequented, never 
heard nor saw him ; and yet his doctrines are not such in 
themselves as would excite it. How then can it be ? other- 
wise than partly from the innocence of his life, and partly 
from the relief his followers experienced in abstraction from 
unquiet and insatiable desires. Many, it is true, have spoken 
of him with hatred : but among his haters are none who knew 
him. Which is remarkable, singular, wonderful : for hatred 
seems as natural to men as hunger is, and excited like hunger 
by the presence of its food ; and the more exquisite the food, 
the more excitable is the hunger. 

MARCUS. 

I do not remember to have met anywhere before with the 
thought you have just expressed. Certain it is however that 
men in general have a propensity to hatred, profitless as it is and 
painful. We say proverbially, after Ennius or some other old 
poet, the descent to Avernus is easy : not less easily are we 
carried down to the more pestiferous pool whereinto we would 
drag our superiors and submerge them. It is the destiny of 



428 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

the obscure to be despised ; it is the privilege of the illustrious 
to be hated. Whoever hates me, proves and feels himself to 
be less than I am. If in argument we can make a man angry 
with us, we have drawn him from his vantage-ground and 
overcome him. For he who, in order to attack a little man 
(and every one calls his adversary so) ceases to defend the 
truth, shows that truth is less his object than the little man. 
I profess the tenets of the New Academy, because it teaches 
us modesty in the midst of wisdom, and leads through doubt 
to inquiry. Hence it appears to me that it must render us 
quieter and more studious, without doing what Epicurus would 
do ; that is, without singing us to sleep in groves and meadows, 
while our country is calling on us loudly to defend her. Never- 
theless I have lived in the most familiar way with Epicureans, 
as you know, and have loved them affectionately. There is no 
more certain sign of a narrow mind, of stupidity, and of 
arrogance, than to stand aloof from those who think differently 
from ourselves. If they have weighed the matter in dispute 
as carefully, it is equitable to suppose that they have the same 
chance as we have of being in the right : if they have not, we 
may as reasonably be out of humour with our footman or 
chairman : he is more ignorant and more careless of it stil. 

I have seen reason to change the greater part of my 
opinions. Let me confess to you, Quinctus, we oftener say 
things because we can say them well, than because they are 
sound and reasonable. One would imagine that every man in 
society knows the nature of friendship. Similarity in the 
disposition, identity in the objects liked and disliked, have 
been stated (and stated by myself) as the essence of it : no- 
thing is untruer. Titus Pomponius and I are different in 
our sentiments, our manners, our habits of life, our ideas of 
men and things, our topics of study, our sects of philosophy ; 
added to which our country and companions have these many 
years been wide apart ; yet we are friends, and always were, 
and, if man can promise anything beyond the morrow, always 
shall be. 

QUINCTUS. 

Tour c idem velle atqiie idem nolle, 3 of which you now 
perceive the futility, has never been suspected ; not even by 
those who have seen Marius and Sylla, Caesar and Pompeius, 
at variance and at war, for no other reason than because they 
sought and shunned the same thing ; shunning privacy and 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QTJINCTUS CICERO. 429 

seeking supremacy. Young men quote the sentence daily; 
those very young men perhaps who court the same mistress, 
and whose friendship not only has not been corroborated, but 
has been shattered and torn up by it. Few authors have 
examined any one thing well, scarcely one many things. Your 
Dialogues are wiser, I think, than those of the Greeks ; 
certainly more animated and more diversified ; but I doubt 
whether you have bestowed so much time and labour on any 
question of general interest to mankind, as on pursuing a thief 
like Yerres, or scourging a drunkard like Piso, or drawing the 
nets of Yulcan over the couch of Clodius. For which reason 
I should not wonder if your Orations were valued by posterity 
more highly than your Dialogues : although the best oration 
can only show the clever man, while Philosophy shows the 
great one. 

MARCUS. 

I approve of the Dialogue for the reason you have given me 
just now j the fewness of settled truths, and the facility of 
turning the cycle of our thoughts to what aspect we wish, as 
geometers and astronomers the globe. A book was lately on 
the point of publication, I hear, to demonstrate the childishness 
of the Dialogue ; and the man upon the bench a little way 
below the Middle Janus, who had already paid the writer thirty 
denars for it, gave it back to him on reading the word childish. 
For Menander or Sophocles or Euripides had caught his eye, all 
of whom, he heard, wrote in dialogue, as did Homer in the 
better parts of his two poems : and he doubted whether a young 
man ignorant of these authors, could ever have known that 
the same method had been employed by Plato on all occasions, 
and by Xenophon in much of his Recollections, and that the 
conversations of Socrates would have lost their form and force, 
delivered in any .other manner. He might perhaps have set 
up himself against the others ; but Ins modesty would not 
let him stand before the world opposed to Socrates under 
the Shield of Apollo. Moras, the man below the Middle 
Janus," is very liberal, and left him in possession of the thirty 
denars, on condition that he should write as acrimoniously 
against as eloquent and judicious an author, whenever called 
upon. 

The Middle Janus is mentioned by Horace. It has usually been 
considered as a temple, and the remains of it are pointed out as such ; 
but in fact it was only the central arch of a market-place. 



430 MAltCTJS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

QUINCTUS. 

Speaking of Plato in the earlier series of your philosophical 
disquisitions, you more highly praised his language than you 
appear to have done lately. 

MARCUS. 

There is indeed much to admire in it \ but even his language 
has fewer charms for me now, than it had in youth. Plato 
will always be an object of admiration and reverence, to men 
who would rather see vast images of uncertain objects reflected 
from illuminated clouds, than representations of things in 
their just proportions, measurable, tangible, and convertible to 
household use. Therefor, in speaking on the levity of the 
Greeks, I turned my eyes toward him ; that none, whatever 
commendations I bestowed upon his diction, might mistake 
me in describing the qualities of his mind. Politics will gain 
nothing of the practical from him, philosophy nothing of what 
is applicable to morals, to science, to the arts, or the conduct 
of life. Unswathe his Egyptian mummy ; and from the folds 
of fine linen, bestrewn and impregnated with aromatics, you 
disclose the grave features and gracile bones of a goodly and 
venerable cat. Little then can you wonder if I have taken him 
as one of small authority, when I composed my works on 
Government, on the Social Duties, or on the Nature of the 
Gods. 

QUINCTUS. 

You have forborne to imitate his style, although you cite 
the words of a Greek enthusiast, who says that if Jupiter had 
spoken in Greek he would have spoken in the language 
of Plato. 

MARCUS. 

Jupiter had no occasion for philosophy ; we have. 

QUINCTUS. 

I prefer your method of conducting the dialogue, although 
I wish you had given us a greater variety both of topics and 
of characters. 

MARCUS. 

If time and health are granted me, perhaps I may do 
somewhat more than I or others have accomplished in this 
department. 

QUINCTUS. 

Why do you smile ? at your confidence of succeeding ? 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 431 

MARCUS. 

No indeed ; but because all strong and generous wine must 
deposit its crust before it gratifies the palate ; and are not all 
such writings in the same predicament ? 

QUINCTUS. 

Various pieces of such criticism have been brought to me. 
One writer says of you, " He would pretend to an equality in 
style and wisdom with Theophrastus." Another, " We 
remember his late invectives, which he had the assurance to 
call Philippics, fancying himself another Demosthenes ! " A 
third, " He knows so little of the Dialogue, that many of his 
speakers talk for a quarter of an hour uninterruptedly ; in fact, 
until they can talk no longer, and have nothing more to say 
upon the subject." 

MARCUS. 

Bare objection ! As if the dialogue of statesmen and philo- 
sophers, which appertains by its nature to dissertation, should 
resemble the dialogue of comedians, and Lselius and Scsevola 
be turned into Davus and Syrus ! Although I have derived 
my ideas of excellence from Greece, out of which there is 
nothing elegant, nothing chaste and temperate, nothing not 
barbarous, nevertheless I have a mind of my own equal in 
capacity and in order to any there, indebted as I acknowledge 
it to be to Grecian exercises and Grecian institutions. Neither 
my time of life nor my rank in it, nor indeed my temper and 
disposition, would allow me to twitch the sleeves of sophists, 
and to banter them on the idleness of their disputations with 
trivial and tiny and petulant interrogatories. I introduce 
grave men, and they talk gravely ; important subjects, and I 
treat them worthily. Lighter, if my spirits had the elasticity to 
give them play, I should touch more delicately and finely, letting 
them fly off in more fantastic forms and more vapoury particles. 
But who indeed can hope to excell in two manners so widely 
different ? Who hath ever done it, Greek or Boman ? If wiser 
men than those who appear at present to have spoken against 
my dialogues, should undertake the same business, I would 
inform them that the most severe way of judging these works, 
with any plea or appearance of fairness, is, to select the best 
passages from the best writers I may have introduced, and to 
place my pages in opposition to theirs in equal quantities. 
Suppose me introducing Solon or Phocion, iEschines or 



432 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

Demosthenes ; that is, whatever is most wise, whatever is most 
eloquent; should it appear that I have equalled them where 
so little space is allowed me, I have done greatly more than 
has ever been done hitherto. Style I consider as nothing 
if what it covers be unsound : w r isdom in union with harmony 
is oracular. On this idea, the wiser of ancient days venerated 
in the same person the deity of oracles and of music : and it 
must have been the most malicious and the most ingenious of 
satirists, who transferred the gift of eloquence to the god of 
thieves. 

QUINCTUS. 

I am not certain that you have claimed for yourself the fair 
trial you would have demanded for a client. One of the inter- 
locutors may sustain a small portion of a thesis. 

MARCUS. 

In that case, take the whole Conversation ; examine the 
quality, the quantity, the variety, the intensity, of mental 
power exerted. I myself would arm my adversaries, and teach 
them how to fight me ; and I promise you, the first blow I 
receive from one of them, I will cheer him heartily : it will 
augur w r ell for our country. At present I can do nothing 
more liberal than in sending thirty other denars to the mortified 
bondman of Moras. 

I have performed one action ; I have composed some few 
things, which posterity, I would fain believe, will not suffer 
to be quite forgotten. Fame, they tell you, is air : but 
without air there is no life for any : without fame there is 
none for the best. And yet, who knows whether all our labours 
and vigils may not at last be involved in oblivion ! What 
treasures of learning must have perished, which existed long 
before the time of Homer ! For it is utterly out of the 
nature of things, that the first attempt in any art or science 
should be the most perfect : such is the Iliad : I look upon 
it as the sole fragment of a lost world. Grieved indeed I 
should be to think, as you have heard me say before, that 
an enemy may possess our city five thousand years hence : yet 
when I consider that soldiers of all nations are in the armies 
of the triumvirate, and that all are more zealous for her ruin 
than our citizens are for her defence, this event is not unlikely 
the very next. The worst of barbarism is that which ema- 
nates, not from the absence of laws, but from their corruption. 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 433 

So long as virtue stands merely on the same level with vice, 
nothing is desperate, nothing is irreparable ; few governments 
in their easy decrepitude care for more. But when rectitude 
is dangerous and depravity secure, then eloquence and courage, 
the natural pride and safeguard of states, become the strongest 
and most active instruments in their overthrow. 

QUINCTUS. 

I see the servants have lighted the lamps in the house 
earlier than usual, hoping, I suppose, we shall retire to rest 
in good time, that to-morrow they may prepare the festivities 
for your birth-day, 

MARCUS. 

They are bringing out of the dining-room, I apprehend, the 
busts our Atticus lately sent me. Let us hasten to prevent 
it, or they may place Homer and Solon with the others, 
instead of inserting them in the niches opposite my bed, 
where I wish to contemplate them by the first light of 
morning, the first objects opening on my eyes. For, without 
the one, not only poetry, but eloquence too, and every high 
species of literary composition, might have remained until 
this day, in all quarters of the globe, incondite and indigested : 
and without the other even Athens herself might have explored 
her way in darkness, and never have exhibited to us Romans 
the prototype of those laws on which our glory hath arisen, and 
the loss of which we are destined to lament as our last 
and greatest . 

QUIXCTUS. 

"Within how few minutes has the night closed in upon us ! 
Nothing is left discernible of the promontories, or the long 
irregular breakers under them. AYe have before us only a 
faint glimmering from the shells in our path, and from the 
blossoms of the arbutus. 

MARCUS. 

The little solitary Circean hill, and even the nearer, loftier, 
and whiter rocks of Anxur, are become indistinguishable. 
We leave our Cato and our Lucullus, we leave Cornelia and 
her children, the scenes of friendship and the recollections 
of greatness, for Lepidus and Octavius and Antonius ; and 
who knows whether this birth-day, between which and us 
so few days intervene, may not be, as it certainly will be the 
least pleasurable, the last ! 



43 i MAECUS TULLTUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

QUINCTUS. 

Do not despond, my brother ! 



I am as far from despondency and dejection as from joy 
and cheerfulness. Death has two aspects : dreary and sorrowful 
to those of prosperous, mild and almost genial to those of 
adverse fortune. Her countenance is old to the young, and 
youthful to the aged : to the former her voice is importunate, 
her gait terrific : the latter she approaches like a bedside 
friend, and calls in a whisper that invites to rest. To us, 
my Quinctus, advanced as we are on our way, weary from 
its perplexities and dizzy from its precipices, she gives a calm 
welcome ; let her receive a cordial one. 

If life is a present which anyone foreknowing its contents 
would have willingly declined, does it not follow that anyone 
would as willingly give it up, having well tried what they are ? 
I speak of the reasonable, the firm, the virtuous ; not of those 
who, like bad governors, are afraid of laying down the powers 
and privileges they have been proved unworthy of holding. 
Were it certain that the longer we live the wiser we become 
and the happier, then indeed a long life would be desirable : 
but since on the contrary our mental strength decays, and 
our enjoyments of every kind not only sink and cease, but 
diseases and sorrows come in place of them, if any wish is 
rational, it is surely the wish that we should go away unshaken 
by years, undeprest by griefs, and undespoiled of our better 
faculties. Life and death appear more certainly ours than 
whatsoever else : and yet hardly can that be called ours, which 
comes without our knowledge, and goes without it ; or that 
which we can not put aside if w r e would, and indeed can 
anticipate but little. There are few who can regulate life to 
any extent ; none who can order the things it shall receive or 
exclude. What value then should be placed upon it by the 
prudent man, when duty or necessity calls him away ? or 
what reluctance should he feel on passing into a state where 
at least he must be conscious of fewer checks and inabilities ? 
Such, my brother, as the brave commander, when from the 
secret and dark passages of some fortress, wherein implacable 
enemies besieged him, having performed all his duties and 
exhausted all his munition, he issues at a distance into open 
dav. 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QU1NCTUS CICERO. 435 

Everything lias its use ; life to teacli us the contempt of 
death, and death the contempt of life. Glory, which among 
all things between stands eminently the principal, although 
it has been considered by some philosophers as mere vanity 
and deception, moves those great intellects which nothing 
else could have stirred, and places them where they can best 
and most advantageously serve the commonwealth. Glory 
can be safely despised by those only who have fairly Avon it : 
a low, ignorant, or vicious man should dispute on other topics. 
The philosopher who contemns it, has every rogue in his 
sect, and may reckon that it will outlive all others. Occasion 
may have been wanting to some ; I grant it : they may have 
remained their whole lifetime like dials in the shade, always 
fit for use and always useless : but this must occur either in 
monarchal governments, or where persons occupy the first 
station who ought hardly to have been admitted to the 
secondary, and whom jealousy has guided more frequently 
than justice. 

It is true there is much inequality, much inconsiderateness, 
in the distribution of fame ; and the principles according to 
which honour ought to be conferred, are not only violated, 
but often inverted. Whoever wishes to be thought great 
among men, must do them some great mischief; and the 
longer he continues in doing things of this sort, the more 
he will be admired. The features of Fortune are so like 

those of Genius as to be mistaken bv almost all the world. We 

t/ 

whose names and works are honorable to our country, and 
destined to survive her, are less esteemed than those who have 
accelerated her decay : yet even here the sense of injury rises 
from and is accompanied by a sense of merit, the tone of 
which is deeper and predominant. 

When we have spoken of life, death, and glory, we have 
spoken of all important things, except friendship : for eloquence 
and philosophy, and other inferior attainments, are either 
means conducible to life and glory, or antidotes against the 
bitterness of death. We can not conquer fate and necessity, 
yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater 
than if we could. I have observed your impatience : you 
were about to appeal in behalf of virtue. But virtue is 
presupposed in friendship, as I have mentioned in my Lmlius ; 
nor have I ever separated it from philosophy or from glory. 
I discussed the subject most at large and most methodically 

F F 2 



436 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 

in my treatise on our Duties, and I find no reason to alter 
my definition or deductions. On friendship, in the present 
condition of our affairs, I would say but little. Could I 
begin my existence again, and what is equally impossible, 
could I see before me all I have seen, I would choose few 
acquaintances, fewer friendships, no familiarities. This rubbish, 
for such it generally is, collecting at the base of an elevated 
mind, lessens its highth and impairs its character. What 
requires to be sustained, if it is greater, falls ; if it is smaller, 
is lost to view by the intervention of its supporters.* 

In literature great men suffer more from their little friends 
than from their potent enemies. It is not by our adversaries 
that our early shoots of glory are nipped and broken off, or 
our later pestilentially blighted ; it is by those who lie at our 
feet, and look up to us with a solicitous and fixed regard 
until our shadow grows thicker and makes them colder. Then 
they begin to praise us as worthy men indeed and good 
citizens, but rather vain, and what (to speak the truth) in 
others they should call presumptuous. They entertain no 
doubt of our merit in literature ; yet justice forces them to 
declare that several have risen up lately who promise to 
surpass us. Should it be asked of them who these are, they 
look modest, and tell you softly and submissively, it would ill 
become them to repeat the eulogies of their acquaintance, 
and that no man pronounces his own name so distinctly as 
another's. I had something of oratory once about me, and 
was borne on high by the spirit of the better Greeks. Thus 
they thought of me; and they thought of me, Quinctus, 
no more than thus. They had reached the straits, and saw 
before them the boundary, the impassable Atlantic, of the 
intellectual world. But now I am a bad citizen and a worse 
writer : I want the exercise and effusion of my own breath to 
warm me : I must be chafed by an adversary : I must be 
supported by a crowd : I require the forum, the rostra, the 
senate : in my individuality I am nothing. 

* These are the ideas of a man deceived and betrayed by almost every- 
one he trusted. But if Cicero had considered that there never was an 
elevated soul or warm heart which has not been ungenerously and unjustly 
dealt with, and that ingratitude has usually been in proportion to desert, 
his vanity if not his philosophy would have buoyed up and supported him. 
He himself is redundant in such instances. To set Pompeius aside, as a 
man ungrateful to all, he had spared Julius Csesar in his consulate when 
he was implicated in the conspiracy of Catiline. Clodius, Lepidus, and 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTU3 CICERO. 437 

QUIXCTUS. 

I remember the time when, instead of smiling, you would 
have been offended and angry at such levity and impudence. 

MARCUS. 

The misfortunes of our country cover ours, and I am imper- 
ceptible to myself in the dark gulf that is absorbing her. 
Should I be angry? Anger, always irrational, is most so here. 
These men see those above them as they see the stars : one is 
almost as large as another, almost as bright ; small distance 
between them. They can not quite touch us with the fore- 
finger; but they can almost. And what matters it? they 
can utter as many things against us, and as fiercely, as 
Polyphemus did against the heavens. Since my dialogues are 
certainly the last things I shall compose, and since we, my 
brother, shall perhaps, for the little time that is remaining of 
our lives, be soon divided, we may talk about these matters as 
among the wisest and most interesting : and the rather if 
there is anything in them displaying the character of our 
country and the phasis of our times. 

Aquilius Cimber, who lives somewhere under the Alps, was 
patronised by Cains Caesar for his assiduities, and by Antonius 
for his admirable talent in telling a story and sitting up late. 
He bears on his shoulders the whole tablet of his nation, 
reconciling its incongruities. Apparently very frank, but 
intrinsically very insincere ; a warm friend while drinking ; 

Antonius. had been admitted to his friendship and confidence : Octavius 
owed to him his popularity and estimation: Philologus.* whom he had 
fed and instructed, pointed out to his pursuers the secret path he had 
taken to avoid them : and Popilius, their leader, had by his eloquence been 
saved from the punishment of one parricide thatjhe might commit another. 
It were well if Cicero had been so sincere in his friendship as perhaps 
he thought he was. ■ The worst action of his life may be related in his 
own words. ■'•' Qualis futura sit Caesaris Vituperatio contra Laudationem 
meam perspexi ex eo libro quern Hirtius ad me misit, in quo colligit vitia 
Catonis, seel cum maximis laudibus meis : itaque misi librum ad Muscam, 
ut tuis librariis daret, volo enim mm divalgari." Ad Attic, xii. 40. A 
honest man would be little gratified by the divulgation of his praises 
accompanied by calumnies on his friend, or even by the exposure of his 
faults and weaknesses. 



* So his name is written by Plutarch, who calls him 'airekevOepos Koiurov. 
We may doubt whether it should not be Philogonus, for a freed-man of 
Quinctus with that name is mentioned in the Epistles (ad Q. F. 1. 3). 



438 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 

cold, vapid, limber, on the morrow, as the festal coronet he 
had worn the night before. 

QUINCTUS. 

Such a person, I can well suppose, may nevertheless have 
acquired the friendship of Antonius. 

MARCUS. 

His popularity in those parts rendered him also an object 
of attention to Octavius, who told me he was prodigiously 
charmed with his stories of departed spirits, which Aquilius 
firmly believes are not altogether departed from his country. 
He hath several old books relating to the history, true and 
fabulous, of the earlier Cimbri. Such is the impression they 
made upon him in his youth, he soon composed others on the 
same model, and better (I have heard) than the originals. 
His opinion is now much regarded in his province on matters 
of literature in general ; although you would as soon think of 
sending for a smith to select an ostrich feather at the milliner's. 
He neglects no means of money-getting, and has entered into 
an association for this purpose with the booksellers of the 
principal Transpadane cities. On the first appearance of my 
dialogues, he, not having read them, nor having heard of 
their tendency, praised them ; moderately indeed and re- 
servedly ; but finding the people in power ready to persecute 
and oppress me, he sent his excuse to Antonius, that he was 
drunk when he did it ; and to Octavius, that the fiercest of 
the Lemures held him by the throat until he had written what 
his heart revolted at. And he ordered his friends and relatives 
to excuse him by one or other of these apologies, according 
to the temper and credulity of the person they addressed. 

QUINCTUS. 

I never heard the story of Aquilius, no less amusing than 
the well-known one of him, that he went several miles out of 
his road to visit the tomb of the Scipios, only to lift up his 
tnnic against it in contempt. He boasted of the feat and of 
the motive. 

MARCUS. 

Until the worthies of our times shone forth, he venerated 
no Roman since the exiled kings, in which his favorite is the 
son of the last : and there are certain men in high authority 
who assure him they know how to appreciate and compensate 
so heroic and sublime an affection. The Catos and Brutusses 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QTJINOTUS CICERO. 439 

are wretches with him, and particularly since Cato pardoned 
him for having hired a fellow (as was proved) to turn some 
swine into his turnip-field at Tusculum. Looking at him or 
hearing of him, unless from those who know his real character, 
you would imagine him generous, self-dependent, self-devoted : 
but this upright and staunch thistle bears a yielding and 
palpable down for adulation. 

QUIXCTUS. 

Better that than malice. Whatever lie may think or say of 
you, I hope he never speaks maliciously of those whose liveli- 
hood, like his own, depends upon their writings ; the studious, 
the enthusiastic, the unhardened in politics, the uncrossed in 
literature. 

MARCUS. 

I wish I could confirm or encourage you in your hopes : 
report, as it reaches me, by no means favors them. 

QUINCTUS. 

This hurts me ; for Aquilius, although the Graces in none of 
their attributions are benignant to lii.m, is a man of industry 
and genius. 

MARCUS. 

Alas, Quinctus ! to pass Aquilius by, as not concerned in 
the reflection, the noblest elevations of the human mind have 
in appertenance their sands and swamps ; hardness at top, 
putridity at bottom. Friends themselves, and not only the 
little ones you have spoken of, not only the thoughtless and 
injudicious, but graver and more constant, will occasionally 
gratify a superficial feeling, which soon grows deeper, by 
irritating an orator or writer. You remember the apologue of 
Critobulus ? 

QUINCTUS. 

No, I do not. ' 

MARCUS. 

It was sent to me by Pomponius Atticus soon after my 
marriage : I must surely have shown it to you. 

QUINCTUS. 

Not you indeed ; and I should wonder that so valuable a 
present, so rare an accession to Rome as a new Greek volume, 
could have come into your hands, and not out of them into 
mine, if you had not mentioned that it was about the time of 
your nuptials. Let me hear the story. 



440 MAB.CUS TULLIUS AND QTJINCTUS CICERO. 

MARCUS. 

"I was wandering/' says Critobulus, "in the midst of a 
forest, and came suddenly to a small round fountain or pool, 
with several white flowers (I remember) and broad leaves in 
the center of it, but clear of them at the sides, and of a water 
the most pellucid. Suddenly a very beautiful figure came 
from behind me, and stood between me and the fountain. I 
was amazed. I could not distinguish the sex, the form being 
youthful and the face toward the water, on which it was gazing 
and bending over its reflection, like another Hylas or Narcissus. 
It then stooped and adorned itself with a few of the simplest 
flowers, and seemed the fonder and tenderer of those which 
had borne the impression of its graceful feet : agd having 
done so, it turned round and looked upon me wi£l an air of 
indifference and unconcern. The longer I fixed my eyes on 
her, for I now discovered it was a female, the more ardent I 
became and the more embarrassed. She perceived it, and 
smiled. Her eyes were large and serene ; not very thoughtful, 
as if perplexed, nor very playful, as if easily to be won; and 
her countenance was tinged with so delightful a colour, that it 
appeared an effluence from an irradiated cloud passing over it 
in the heavens. She gave me the idea, from her graceful 
attitude, that, although adapted to the perfection of activity, 
she felt rather an inclination for repose. I would have taken 
her hand : c You shall presently/ said she ; and never fell on 
mortal a diviner glance than on me. I told her so. She 
replied, c You speak well/ I then fancied she was simple, and 
weak, and fond of flattery, and began to flatter her. She 
turned her face away from me, and answered nothing. I 
declared my excessive love : she went some paces off. I swore 
it was impossible for one who had ever seen her to live without 
her : she went several paces farther. c By the immortal gods!' 
I cried, 'you shall not leave me/ She turned round and 
looked benignly; but shook her head. 'You are another's 
then ! Say it ! say it ! utter the word once from your lips . . 
and let me die/ She smiled, more melancholy than before, 
and replied, e Critobulus ! I am indeed another's ; lama 
God's/ The air of the interior heavens seemed to pierce me 
as she spoke ; and I trembled as impassioned men may tremble 
once. After a pause, 'I might have thought it!' cried I: 
c why then come before me and torment me ? ' She began to 
play and trifle with me, as became her age (I fancied) rather 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUIXCTUS CICERO. 441 

than her engagement, and she placed my hand upon the 
flowers in her lap without a blush. The whole fountain would 
not at that moment have assuaged my thirst. The sound of 
the breezes and of the birds around us, even the sound of her 
own voice, were all confounded in my ear, as colours are in the 
fulness and intensity of light. She said many pleasing things 
to me, to the earlier and greater part of which I was insensible; 
but in the midst of those which I could hear and was listening 
to attentively, she began to pluck out the grey hairs from my 
head, and to tell me that the others too were of a hue not 
very agreeable. My heart sank within me. Presently there 
was hardly a limb or feature without its imperfection. '01' 
cried I in despair, ' you have been used to the Gods : you 
must think so : but among men I do not believe I am con- 
sidered as ill-made or unseemly/ She paid little attention to 
my words or my vexation ; and when she had gone on with 
my defects for some time longer, in the same calm tone and 
with the same sweet countenance, she began to declare that 
she had much affection for me, and was desirous of inspiring 
it in return. I was about to answer her with rapture, when 
on a sudden, in her girlish humour she stuck a thorn, where- 
with she had been playing, into that part of the body which 
supports us when we sit. I know not whether it went deeper 
than she intended, but catching at it, I leaped up in shame 
and anger, and at the same moment felt something upon my 
shoulder. It was an armlet inscribed with letters of bossy 
adamant, c Jove to his daughter Truth/ 

" She stood again before me at a distance, and said grace- 
fully, ' Critobulus ! I am too young and simple for you ; but 
you will love me stil, and not be made unhappy by it in the 
end. Farewell/ " 

QUINCTUS. 

Why did you not insert this allegory in some part of your 
works, as you have often many pages from the Greek ? 

MARCUS. 

I might have done it, but I know not whether the state of 
our literature is any longer fit for its reception. 

QUINCTUS. 

Confess, if it is not, that the fault is in some sort yours, 
who might have directed the higher minds, and have carried 
the lower with them. 



412 MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

MARCUS. 

I regard with satisfaction the efforts I have made to serve 
my country : but the same eloquence, the merit of which not 
even the most barbarous of my adversaries can detract from 
me, would have enabled me to elucidate large fields of 
philosophy, hitherto untrodden by our countrymen, and in 
which the Greeks have wandered widely or worked unprofit- 
ably. 

QUINCTUS. 

Excuse my interruption. I heard a few days ago a pleasant 
thing reported of Asinius Pollio : he said at supper, your 
language is that of an Allobrox. 

MARCUS. 

After supper, I should rather think, and with Antonius. 
Asinius, urged by the strength of instinct, picks from amid 
the freshest herbage the dead dry stalk, and dozes and dreams 
about it where he can not find it. Acquired, it is true, I have 
a certain portion of my knowledge, and consequently of my 
language, from the Allobroges : I can not well point out the 
place : the wails of Romulus, the habitations of Janus and of 
Saturn, and the temple of Capitoline Jove, which the con- 
fessions I extorted from their embassadors gave me in my 
consulate the means of saving, stand at too great a distance 
from this terrace. 

QUIXCTUS. 

Certainly you have much to look back upon, of what is 
most proper and efficacious to console you. Consciousness of 
desert protects the mind against obloquy, exalts it above 
calamity, and scatters into utter invisibility the shadowy fears 
of death. Nevertheless, Marcus ! to leave behind us our 
children, if indeed it will be permitted them to stay behind, is 
painful. 

MARCUS. 

Among the contingencies of life, it is that for which we 
ought to be the best prepared, as the most regular and ordi- 
nary in the course of nature. In dying, and leaving our 
friends, and saying, "I shall see you no more," which is 
thought by the generous man the painfullest thing in the 
change he undergoes, we speak as if we shall continue to feel 
the same desire and want of seeing them. An inconsistency 
so common as never to have been noticed : and my remark, 
which you would think too trivial, startles by its novelty 



MARCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 443 

before it conciliates by its truth. We bequeathe to our 
children a field illuminated by our glory and enriched by our 
example: a noble patrimony, and beyond the jurisdiction of 
praetor or proscriber. Nor indeed is our fail itself without its 
fruit to them : for violence is the cause why that is often 
called a calamity which is not, and repairs in some measure its 
injuries by exciting to commiseration and tenderness. The 
pleasure a man receives from his children resembles that which, 
with more propriety than any other, we may attribute to the 
Divinity : for to suppose that his chief satisfaction and delight 
should arise from the contemplation of what he has done or 
can do, is to place Mm on a level with a runner or a wrestler. 
The formation of a world, or of a thousand worlds, is as easy 
to him as the formation of an atom. Virtue and intellect are 
equally his production; yet he subjects them in no slight 
degree to our volition. His benevolence is gratified at seeing 
us conquer our wills and rise superior to our infirmities ; and 
at tracing day after day a nearer resemblance in our moral 
features to his. We can derive no pleasure but from exertion : 
he can derive none from it : since exertion, as we understand 
the word, is incompatible with omnipotence. 

QUINCTUS. 

Proceed, my brother ! for in every depression of mind, in 
every excitement of feeling,, my spirits are equalised by your 
discourse ; and that winch you said with too much brevity of 
our children, soothes me greatly. 

MARCUS. 

I am persuaded of the truth in what I have spoken ; and 
yet . . ah Quinctus ! there is a tear that Philosophy can not 
dry, and a pang that will rise as we approach the Gods. 

Two things tend beyond all others, after philosophy, to 
inhibit and check our ruder passions as they grow and swell 
in us, and to keep our gentler in their proper play : and these 
two tilings are, seasonable sorrow and inoffensive pleasure, each 
moderately indulged. Nay, there is also a pleasure, humble, it 
is true, but graceful and insinuating, which follows close upon 
our very sorrows, reconciles us to them gradually, and some- 
times renders us at last undesirous altogether of abandoning 
them. If ever you have remembered the anniversary of some 
day whereon a dear friend was lost to you, tell me whether 
that anniversary was not purer and even calmer than the day 



444 MAKCUS TULLIUS AND QUINCTUS CICERO. 

before, The sorrow, if there should be any left, is soon 
absorbed, and full satisfaction takes place of it, while you 
perform a pious office to Friendship, required and appointed 
by the ordinances of Nature. When my Tulliola was torn 
away from me, a thousand plans were in readiness for immor- 
talising her memory, and raising a monument up to the 
magnitude of my grief. The grief itself has done it : the tears 
I then shed over her assuaged it in me, and did everything 
that could be done for her, or hoped, or wished. I called 
upon Tulliola ; Rome and the whole world heard me : her 
glory was a part of mine and mine of hers ; and when Eternity 
had received her at my hands, I wept no longer. The 
tenderness wherewith I mentioned and now mention her, 
though it suspends my voice, brings what consoles and comforts 
me : it is the milk and honey left at the sepulcher, and equally 
sweet (I hope) to the departed. 

The Gods, who have given us our affections, permit us 
surely the uses and the signs of them. Immoderate grief, like 
everything else immoderate, is useless and pernicious ; but if 
we did not tolerate and endure it, if we did not prepare for it, 
meet it, commune with it, if we did not even cherish it in its 
season, much of what is best in our faculties, much of our 
tenderness, much of our generosity, much of our patriotism, 
much also of our genius, would be stifled and extinguished. 

When I hear any one call upon another to be manly and to 
restrain his tears, if they flow from the social and kind 
affections I doubt the humanity and distrust the wisdom of 
the counsellor. Were he humane, he would be more inclined 
to pity and to sympathise than to lecture and reprove ; and 
were he wise, he would consider that tears are given us by 
nature as a remedy to affliction, although, like other remedies, 
they should come to our relief in private. Philosophy, we 
may be told, would prevent the tears by turning away the 
sources of them, and by raising up a rampart against pain and 
sorrow. I am of opinion that philosophy, quite pure and 
totally abstracted from our appetites and passions, instead of 
serving us the better, would do us little or no good at all. 
We may receive so much light as not to see, and so much 
philosophy as to be worse than foolish. I have never had 
leisure to write all I could have written on the subjects I 
began to meditate and discuss too late. And where, O 
Quinctus ! where are those men gone, whose approbation 



MARCUS TULLIUS AXD QUINCTUS CICERO. 4.45 

would have stimulated and cheered me in the course of them ? 
Little is entirely my own in the Tascidan Disputations ; for I 
went rather in search of what is useful than of what is specious, 
and sat down oftener to consult the wise than to argue with 
the ingenious. In order to determine what is fairly due to 
me, you will see,, which you may easily, how large is the pro- 
portion of the impracticable, the visionary, the baseless, in the 
philosophers who have gone before me ; and how much of 
application and judgment, to say nothing of temper and 
patience, was requisite in making the selection. Aristoteles is 
the only one of the philosophers I am intimate with (except 
you extort from me to concede you Epicurus) who never is a 
dreamer or a trifier, and almost the only one whose language, 
varying with its theme, is yet always grave and concise, autho- 
ritative and stately, neither running into wild dithyrambics, 
nor stagnating in vapid luxuriance. I have not hesitated, on 
many occasions, to borrow largely from one who, in so many 
provinces, hath so much to lend. The whole of what I 
collected, and the whole of what I laid out from my own, is 
applicable to the purposes of our political, civil, and domestic 
state. And my elocpience, whatever (with PolhVs leave) it 
may be, would at least have sufficed me to elucidate and explore 
those ulterior tracts, winch the Greeks have coasted negligently 
and left unsettled. Although I think I have done somewhat 
more than they, I am often dissatisfied with the scantiness of 
my store and the limit of my excursion. Every question has 
given me the subject of a new one, winch has always been 
better treated than the preceding ; and, like Archimedes, whose 
tomb appears now before me as when I first discovered it at 
Syracuse, I could almost ask of my enemy time to solve my 
problem. 

Quinctus ! Quinctus ! let us exult with joy : there is no 
enemy to be appeased or avoided. TTe are moving forward, 
and without exertion, thither where we shall know all we wish 
to know, and how greatly more than, whether in Tusculum or 
in Eormise, in Rome or in Athens, we could ever hope to 
learn ! 



446 TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 



TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 

— ♦ — 

TIBULLUS. 

Messala ? this is indeed a delight to me. A visit in Rome 
would have been little better than an honour. 

MESSALA. 

My dear Tibullus ! didst thou not promise me a great 
reward if I would come to thy villa in the autumn ? Confident 
that no urbanity can escape thy memory or thy performance, 
here I am. 

TIBULLUS. 

Little, too little, is whatever I could have promised. 

MESSALA. 

Little ? didst thou not promise me in presence of all the 
Muses, that Delia should cull the ripest apples for me ? and 
thou well knowest how fond I always was of them. 

TIBULLUS. 

On the Garumna and on the Liger, after a tedious march, 
we often found them refreshing. 

MESSALA. 

"What then must they be, gathered by the hand of Delia, 
the beloved of my brave Tibullus ? 

TIBULLUS. 

She shall gather them instantly. 

Come, Delia ! come from behind that curtain. Here is 
Messala. Do not let his eloquence win thy heart away from 
me, and forget for a moment all thou hast ever heard about his 
military actions and his high nobility. 

DELIA. 

Albius ! Albius ! for shame ! how dare you take such a 
liberty with so great a man as to put my hand into his ? 

TIBULLUS. 

Because he is what thou callest him : I take no liberty 
with anv other. 



TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 447 



Albius Tibullus ! I never tliouglit thee such a flatterer 
before. Were I in power, or in favour with the powerful, 
thou wouldst be more discreet and silent. Neither the heir 
of Julius, nor his bosom friend the patron of poets, have ever 
won a verse or a visit from thee. 



And never shall, though each of them I believe hath his 
merit. Was it to either I owe the preservation of half my 
patrimony ? of this villa ? of the apple that is growing on the 
tree for thee ? Friends who watch over us are to be thanked ; 
not robbers who leave us bruised on the road, throwing back 
into our faces a few particles of the booty. 

MESSALA. 

Come along, come along ; let us gather the apple. 

tibullus (to delia). 
He will not hear me ; thanks pain him, much as he loves 
the grateful. Go on, my Delia. 

DELIA. 

Say more about him before we reach the orchard, 

TIBULLUS. 

His intervention, his authority, his name, saved for us all 
we have. But come ; we must overtake him : he walks 
swiftly on. 

Messala ! you were always first in the field of battle : I 
will be up with you in this. 

MESSALA. 

the active girl ! she has caught thee by the tunic in ten 
paces. 

DELIA. 

Sir ! sir ! what are you doing ? 

MESSALA. 

My pretty one, I am lifting thee up to gather me two or 
three of those red and yellow apples : they are . better than 
such as are nearer the bottom of the tree. 

Well done ! what ! another, and another, and another ? 
Throw the next down into the bosom of Albius, who is making 



448 TIBULLUS AND MESS ALA. 

a sack of his vest for its reception : and now put one, only 
one, into thy own. 

Behold ! thou art now safe down again. Give me the 
apple out of its hiding-place. 

How she blushes ! Ha ! she runs away. 

Albius ! that little girl is the delight of thy youthful years, 
and will be, I augur, the solace of thy decline. 

TIBULLUS. 

She stands listening behind the statue, pretending to admire 
it, or to see somewhat in its features she never saw before. 

Didst thou hear him, my Delia ? Light of my life ! art 
thou sorrowful ? 

DELIA. 

I did hear ; I own it. Sorrowful ! no, no. 

But how can I hope, sir, to be always a delight to him ? 
What on earth, as my mother used to say, is always ? I was 
fifteen years old, and two more are nearly gone, since. . . 

MESSALA. 

Since Albius was made happy and Delia was made immortal. 
Is it so ? 

DELIA. 

I must grow old at last ! 

TIBULLUS. 

And so must L 

DELIA. 

Oh ! no, no, no, that can never be. 

MESSALA. 

Lady, it is well to think so : Aurora thought it of 
Tithonus. Your ages united are somewhat under mine. Never 
take such notice of my scanty and grey hairs ; frightful as 
they are, they are truthful. 

DELIA. 

If they seem grey it is only because you are in the sunlight. 

MESSALA. 

Ah Delia ! I am much nearer the starlight than the 
sunlight. Day is fast closing with me. But my life has not 
been unserviceable to my friends or to my country. Yet what, 
after all, am I ? 

Ye glories of the world, how rapidly, how irrevocably, ye 
depart ! Men who have shaken the forum and the senate- 



TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 449 

house with their eloquence, are soon deserted, soon forgotten. 
The stoutest are in need of support ; and their props are 
often of the most carious materials. Brief is the glimmer of 
the sword. The timber of the chariot which hath borne up 
the conqueror to the Capitol, outlasts him ; and the cicada, 
who lives her three days, lives all her three more merrily than 
he his proudest. 

TIBULLUS. 

Light are our ashes ; our wishes, our hopes, our lives, are 
lighter. Who then upon earth is great and powerful ? 

MESSALA. 

The poet. The poet is the assessor of the gods : he receives 
from them, and imparts to whomsoever he chooses, the gift 
of immortality. It is several years, fair Delia, since Albius 
wrote a panegyric on me, and you were beginning to try what 
you could do toward the framework of another. 

TIBULLUS. 

I do not repent that I wrote it, Messala, though I never 
wrote anything so badly since. I was almost a boy, and the 
weight of the matter bore me down. 

MESSALA. 

Certainly it is less excellent, and it ought to be, than what 
Delia hath since inspired. Tell me, Delia, now we are in 
confidence and at home all three, do not you think our 
Albius a fine handsome creature ? Come, I will allow you to 
blush a little, it is so becoming, but not allow you to be silent 
any longer. 

DELIA. 

Make him answer first whether he really thinks me so ; for 
he would never tell a story to you. 

MESSALA. 

Shame upon him ! it appears that he has already told you 
one so incredible. 

DELIA. 

Morning, noon, and . . 

MESSALA. 

Go on, go on. 

DELIA. 

I have spoken. 

MESSALA. 

And you believed him ? 



450 TIBULLUS AND MESS ALA. 

DELIA. 

Bather more at first than now ; but never quite. sir ! 
make him tell the real truth; pray do. 

MESSALA. 

I will answer for Albius that he always proves his word, 
sooner or later. 

DELIA. 

I do not desire it just at present ; I can wait. 
Fie, Albius ! Albius ! do men ever snatch up our hands 
and kiss them in presence of the great ? 

MESSALA. 

Let me intercede and answer for him. In the presence 
of the happy they do, whether of mortals or gods. 

DELIA. 

You too are a little in fault, if I may dare to say it. I 
have not forgotten the apple-tree, sir ! 

MESSALA. 

What a memory ! Are you certain there may not be some- 
thing of the fabulous in so remote an occurrence ? 

TIBULLUS. 

To-morrow we will retrace our steps, and learn over again 
this dubious and half-obliterated page of history : what say 
you, Delia ? 

DELIA. 

Ask what says our noble guest. But it will be your turn 
to-morrow, my Albius, to throw down the apples. It made 
me tremble all over. That is no reason why we should not 
go into the orchard at some early hour of the morning, 
were it only to see whether any thieves have broken in ; for 
they do not heed the dogs, although loose. 

Audacious ! audacious ! and you smile, do you ? Ah ! you 
may well look down. Certain men have methods of making 
dogs lie quiet, when they resolve on committing a robbery 
in the dark. I have half a mind to tell Messala of somebody 
I know, very sly and treacherous, who, within my recollection, 
made even Molossians lie quiet and forget their duty. You 
blush ; that is proper. "Well, perhaps I may let you off this 
once, and say nothing about it now you are penitent. Beside, 



TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 451 

it was a good while ago, and not here. Mother thought it 
was witchcraft, and she lustrated the house with eggs and 
sulphur. 

MESSALA. 

If any task is to be imposed on him, order him to write 
another elegy, complaining of your severity and atoning for 
his offence. Apollo will punish him for extolling me above 
my merits by making him inadequate to yours. 

Tibullus ! it occurs to me that he, whom I have heard you 
mention as the best poet of the present day, wrote two poems 
in his youth such as I wonder he should acknowledge and 
republish ; the Culex and the Ceiris. 



He compensated for them soon after, by verses more harmo- 
nious than ever had been heard before in our tongue. How 
beautiful are those at the commencement of the first eclogue, 
and those of the goatherd at the close of it; and those to 
Lycoris traversing the Alps, in the last ! 

MESSALA. 

You have cited the few verses worth remembrance. He 
says somewhere that Apollo pulled his ear and admonished 
him. The god should have pulled it again, and harder, for 
neglecting his admonition when he composed his Pollio. He 
did indeed take away from him on that one occasion the gift 
of harmony. 

TIBULLUS. 

Kestored soon. How admirable are some passages in that 
poem on husbandry, which he has given us lately. 

MESSALA. 

Admirable in parts, but disproportionate. In the exordium 
he has amplified Varro's Portico, which already was too 
spacious for the edifice. 

TIBULLUS. 

Indeed there was exordium quite sufficient at 

Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis ; 

which would be followed appropriately by the distant line 
Da facilem cursum. 

G G2 



452 TIBULLUS AND MESS ALA. 

MESSALA. 

What think you of the Scorpion drawing his arms in, that 
Octavius may have room enough ? or the despair of Tartarus 
at missing such a treasure ? or the backwardness of Proserpine 
to follow her mother ? Here are together eight such verses as 
I would give eighty bushels of wheat to eradicate from the 
poetry of a friend. The Greeks by the facility of their versi- 
fication are often verbose and languid, but they never exhaust 
so much breath before they start. A husbandman does his 
work badly with a buskin fastened round the ancle, and an 
ampulla swinging at the girdle. 

Our Mantuan's Winter is unworthy of even a secondary poet : 
no selection of topics, no arrangement, no continuity ; instead 
of which, there is a dreary conglomeration, where little things 
and great are confounded. Was ever bathos so profound as in 

iEraque dissiliunt vulgo vestesque rigescunt, 

unless two lines lower, where 

Solidam in glaciem vertere lacunae, 
Stiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis. 

TIBULLUS. 

Let us climb over the ice and snow, leap across the 
lacuna, and wipe away the stiria. His summer storm is such 
as Jupiter might have sent down to show his power, and 
Apollo might have hymned to his father's glory. 

MESSALA. 

Very soon you will take Proteus under your patronage. 
There are some, I am told, who really find in the story of 
Eurydice a noble effort of poetry. 

TIBULLUS. 

It grieved me to see that excrescence. 

MESSALA. 

Proteus had no pity for Cyrene, whom he must have 
known from his infancy, but abundance of it for a dead 
man's head which he never could have heard of while it 
was on the shoulders, which head moreover was carried 
down a river a thousand miles distant from his haunts, and 
sang all the way. Prigid was indeed the tongue that sang 
there, and almost as frigid the tongue that sang about it. 



TIBULLUS AND MESS ALA. 453 

Such puerility is scarcely for the schoolroom, but rather for 
the nursery, and comes very nigh the cradle. We have talked 
about this before, by ourselves, and without any intention 
of gratifying the malignity of minor songmen. 

TIBULLUS. 

Propertius tells me that he has lately seen the commence- 
ment of an epic by him, and that, if the remainder is equal 
to the two first books, it will rival the Iliad. 



May we live to read it ! at all events may he to complete it ! 

TIBULLUS. 

Pleasant will it be to me to feel the slight shudder of 
Delia on my bosom when I read to her the battles. 

MESSALA. 

Where is she ? she has slipt out. 

TIBULLUS. 

Perhaps she is gone to crown the Penates, for she is pious 
and grateful. 

MESSALA. 

Two qualities not always found together. Frequently have 
I remarked, in the most devout, the most arrogant, quarrel- 
some, and unjust. 

Have you room in your chapel for Caius Julius, our latest 
god? 

TIBULLUS. 

Highly as I esteem him, I have not procured his statue. 
Gods are great by necessity, mortals by exertion : and what 
exertions were ever so animated or so unremitted as his ? 

MESSALA. 

All of them tended to the glory of his country, out of 
which parent soil his own shot up exuberantly, and at last 
(it seems) reached the heavens. 



In my humble opinion, and I hope I am falling into no 
impiety when I say it, we have gods enow already. Those of 
Egypt we have in our kitchens, and those of Gaul are not worth 
conveyance from their woods. We require no importations. 



454 TIBULLUS AND MESS ALA. 

MESSALA. 

Formerly gods made men; at present men make gods. 
Where will this fashion have an end ? Perhaps yon may live 
to enlarge your sacristy. 

TIBULLUS. 

I find an object of worship in every field. Wherever there is 
a stake or a stone crowned with flowers,* I bend before it, and 
thank the gods for inspiring the hearts of men with gratitude. 
I feel confident they are well-pleased at these oblations, how- 
ever poor their worshiper, and however he mispronounce their 
names. 

MESSALA. 

While the gods came from the potter, men were virtuous and 
happy ; when they came from the goldsmith they retained the 
heat of the furnace, and dazzled and deluded. Priests assumed 
their similitude, and encrusted one another with the same metal. 

TIBULLUS. 

Barbarous nations have beheld these prodigies ; may Rome 
never see within her walls a worse Pontifex than Caius Julius. 

MESSALA. 

Nevertheless, by his oration in the senate, as Crispus 
Sallustius hath recorded it, he seems to have verged on 
atheism. I do not mean hereby to question his aptitude for 
the office, which others at Eome, after him, have equally well 
discharged with no firmer belief in the deity, and less resem- 
blance. 

TIBULLUS. 

If you enter our little sanctuary, you will see the Lares not 
crowned as usual with rosemary and myrtle, but with myrtle 
only. The reason is : Delia had gathered both from under 
the villa-wall, to decorate the little deities, inobservant that a 
bee was inside the blossom of a rosemary, and, beginning to 
press it round one of the images, she was stung. The sting 
was forgotten in the omen. 

MESSALA. 

What omen is there in so ordinary an occurrence ? 

TIBULLUS. 

" Albius !" cried she, " something sad will happen, my 
piety is rejected, and my love, my love" . . . Sobs interrupted 

* Nam veneror seu stipes habet desertus in agris, 
Seu vetus in. trivio florida serta lapis. 



TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 455 

her ; and she would never tell me afterward what she was 
then about to say. 

MESSALA. 

Simpleton ! But at present there are no signs either of 
sting or omen. Propertius, whom you just now mentioned, 
is an imitator of yours, at a distance. His elegies are 
apparently tasks undertaken by order of a schoolmaster. He 
is uneasy at the loss of a little farm under Perusia, which the 
triumvirate allotted to the legions. Civil wars bring down 
these curses ; and not always the most heavily on those who 
took a prominent part in them. Probably he is more poet 
than philosopher ; and he may never have reflected that many 
things occur, in the course of every man's life, which he 
deems unfortunate, and which his friends deem so too, and 
upon which they not only condole with him at the time, but 
commemorate and discourse upon long after. Little are they 
aware that unless these very things had happened, the pleasure 
they are enjoying at that moment, in social intercourse with 
him, might not exist. Fortune, who appears to have frowned 
on him with her worst malignity, in debarring him from 
that which he groaned for, and was within a step of attaining, 
may there have been his very best friend. If the farm of 
Propertius had been larger, it might have cost him his life. 
Such prices, we know, have been paid occasionally. When 
in the heat of midsummer I went to visit a neglected property 
of mine among the hills near Sulmo, I was visited by his friend 
"* Ovidius Naso, with whose Epistles of Heroes and Heroines, on 
their appearance last winter, you were, I remember, much 
delighted. He, like the generality of young poets, meditates a 
grand work ; and, unlike the generality, is capable of executing 
it. Practice itself can hardly add to his facility; and love 
itself is hardly more ingenious and inventive. He excels in 
sentences, never dogmatical, never prolix, never inopportune. 
In every department of eloquence, and particularly in poetry, 
we look for depth and clearness ; a clearness that shows the 
depth j here we find it. 

* Tibullus and Propertius, with few more, enjoy the good fortune to 
escape from mutilation in the extremities of the name. Following the 
French, but neither the Italians nor Germans, we treat Ovid and Virgil 
and Horace less ceremoniously ; and appear to be more familiar with them 
than their contemporaries were. It would be affectation in common 
discourse to say Virgilius, or Ovidius, or Horatius : it would be worse 
than affectation to represent a Roman saying Horace, or Virgil, or Ovid. 



456 TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 

Before I left Ovidius when I returned his visit, he read to 
me the commencement of some amatory pieces, at which, if I 
smiled, it was in courtesy, not in approbation. From the 
mysteries of religion the veil is seldom to be drawn, from 
the mysteries of love never. For this offence the gods take 
away from us our freshness of heart and our susceptibility 
of pure delight. The well loses the spring that fed it, and 
what is exposed in the shallow basin soon evaporates. I 
wish well to Ovidius, for he speaks well of everybody. Poets 
are enrolled in the Cadmean legion : each one cuts down his 
comrade : but Ovidius stands apart, gentle and generous, 
uniting the moral to the sensual voluptuary. He is kinder to 
Propertius than Horatius Flaccus is, who turns him into 
ridicule under the name of Callimachus. Our pleasant lyrist 
is disposed to praise nobody at a distance from the Palatine. 

TIBULLUS. 

Judicious in his choice, he praises Yirgilius and Yalgius 
and Varius and Tucca. In his Satires he is equally discreet, 
equally refined. Satire ought to strike at the face, as Csesar 
ordered the soldier to do on the field of Pharsalia ; far from 
mortal, the stroke should never be outrageous or repeated. 
Coarseness and harshness are no proof of strength, as some 
would fain inculcate. On the contrary, there is no true satire 
which departs from graceful pleasantry, and which either runs 
into philosophical sententiousness or acrimonious declamation. 
Satire draws neither blood nor tears : laughter and blushes 
are the boundaries of her dominion. 

MESSALA. 

Perfectly just remark ; and Horatius is no violator of them. 
Many of his Odes are so light, so playful, so graceful, that 
nothing is comparable to them in the literature of Greece. 
Seldom is he energetic or impressive ; seldomer, even when he 
attempts it, pathetic. He who tickles the bosom is the least 
likely to touch the heart. I could pardon him a few of his 
deficiencies, if he were less parsimonious of praise toward men 
like you, and if his nymphs poured less of cold water into 
the cup containing it. 

TIBULLUS. 

Conscious of his own merits, as every man who possesses 
any must be, however he may dissemble it, Horatius can ill 
endure that Catullus and Calvus should be preferred to him, 
as they are by many. 



TIBULLUS AND MESSALA. 457 

MESSALA. 

I think I have allowed him all his due. 

TIBULLUS. 

Not quite : add also his great variety. Recent or ancient, 
surely none is comparable to him in this. 

MESSALA. 

In the stock of his Gynsecseurn, none. Seriously, it is a 
pity that he who, on his Tiburtine and Sabine farm, is master 
of so many true and solid, should in worse wantonness have 
devised so many fabulous mistresses. It takes away from us 
all illusion, all sympathy : we laugh at an Ixion raising a cloud 
to embrace it. But is there any man, Albius, who can read 
without tenderness your Te spectem? Believe me, you are 
the only elegiac poet, Greek or Eoman, whom Posterity will 
cherish. Imperishable are those things only which have been 
created in the heart. 

TIBULLUS. 

Forget not then your favorite Catullus, the creator there. 

MESSALA. 

Earnest and impressive, no poet rests so perfectly on the 
memory. He is the only one whose verses I could remember 
after the first reading ; I mean his Hendecasyllables and 
Scazons. 

TIBULLUS. 

Painful, very painful is it, that the lover of Lesbia should 
revile her so coarsely as he did before he left her ; if indeed 
he ever left her at all, or ever possest her. For it appears to 
me quite impossible that a tender heart, however rancorous it 
may have become under infidelities and indignities, should ever 
lose its fineness of fiber, should ever sink into deep corruption. 
Willingly then would I believe that many of his poems, as 
you suppose of Horatius's, are merely exercises of ingenuity. 

MESSALA. 

In the elegiac measure, excepting the verses on his brother's 
funeral, he was less successful. Ovidius hath utterly ruined 
it. Of all meters, the pentameter is the least harmonious, and 
the least adapted to the expression of sorrow, to which 
Mimnermus and Tyrtseus and Solon never applied it. Frisky 
as it is, it is not frisky enough for Ovidius. With better 
judgment, you correct the gambols of the first hemistych by 
the gravity of the spondee : he, wherever he can, renders it 



458 TIBULLTJS AXD MESSALA. 

dactylic. Often have I defended him against the charge of 
affectation, but there is no defence for it in terminating every 
pentameter with a dissyllable. This is a trick unworthy of a 
schoolboy : Catullus and you have scorned it : Propertius hath 
followed your example : the Genius of our language cries out 
against the entanglement, and snaps the chain. 

TIBULLUS. 

That bust in the corner of the room is the bust of Lucretius; 
and I know not whether there is any other of him : I bought 
it at the decease of his widow. 



How different from the opposite ! poor Cicero's. He always 
carried anxiety and hurry in his countenance : that little head 
of his appears as if it never could lie down to rest. 

TIBULLUS. 

I saw him but once, and it was shortly before his departure. 
Lucretius I never saw at all. 



I wish he had abstained from his induperator and endogredi. 
Language is as much corrupted by throwing decayed words 
into it as by the rank and vapid succulence of yesterday's 
sudden growth. If part is ancient, let all be ancient. "When 
Lucretius complains of our poverty in language, he means 
only in terms of art and science. Let us stand up for its 
dignity, and appeal to Plautus for its responsibility. Cicero 
and Csesar have brought it to perfection ; there are already 
signs of its decline. Many of those who were educated at 
Athens have introduced lately a variety of hellenisms : the 
young poets are too fond of them : among your merits is 
abstinence from this (not very unpardonable) intoxication. 

Plautus and Terentius, who drew largely from Greek 
originals, are less Greek in their phraseology than many who 
write now. Lucretius I see is lying on the table. Ovidius, 
who admires even his contemporaries, is a warm admirer of him, 
and declares that his work on Nature will perish only with 
Nature herself. Nothing is so animated and so august as his 
invocation. His friend Memmius outlived him ; but not long 
enough to see the termination of those discords which he 
prayed Mars, at the intercession of Venus, to abate. Little 
did he imagine that a youth who claims descent from her 



TIBULL1JS AND MESSALA. 459 

should be enabled to compose them. Octavius was then a boy, 
thirteen or fourteen years old, just sent by the munificence of 
his uncle, Caius Julius, to study at Athens. Happily he found 
there a protector, in a wealthy and clever tho' dissolute friend 
a few years older, Cilnius Mecsenas, to whose counsels he owes 
probably his life, certainly his station and security. 

TIBULLUS. 

It is the glory of Mecsenas to have derived no part of his 
riches from the proscriptions. 

MESSALA. 

He had large estates in the most fertile districts of Etruria: 
but that is no diminution of his merit : others as affluent 
were rapacious and insatiable. His weakness, one among 
many, lies in his affectation of family. Were he really 
a descendant of a Lucumon, the pedigree would have been 
drawn out and exhibited : indeed it is a wonder that a fictitious 
one never was substituted. Maccus says that his ancestors, 
both maternal and paternal, had formerly commanded " great 
legions." There is no record of these great legions having 
performed great actions. If they ever had, he would have 
pointed to them and have named the battle-field. He has not 
omitted to tell us who slew Asdrubal, nor the name of the 
river on whose banks he fell. He brings forward his patron's 
royal origin on every occasion, and truly with small dexterity. 
It seldom or never has anything to do with the subject. Take 
for instance the first ode ; the worst in the book, excepting 
the second. And there are other places quite as remarkable 
for a similar want of connection. 

TIBULLUS. 

"With various little weaknesses he is really an estimable man, 
altho' it never may have occurred to him that no one has a 
right to claim antiquity of family unless he can distinctly show 
an ancestor who hath rendered a signal service to the common- 
wealth. 

MESSALA. 

To Cilnius however it is mainly owing that our manners 
are softened, our dissentions pacified, our laws emended, and 
the remainder of our properties secured. 

TIBULLUS. 

And commonwealth ? The old nut has only a maggot and 
dust within it ; and the squirrel at the top of the tree, having 



460 TIBULLUS AND MESS ALA. 

laid up or eaten all the sounder, thinks it ill worth while to 
co^ne down and crack it. 

We are safe at present ; and that is somewhat : but who on 
earth can insure us that Thracian or Dacian, or Gaul or 
German, shall not, within a century or two, advance on Eome? 

MESSALA. 

Blindness is the effect of straining the eye too far. Empires 
have fallen, and will fall : the harder crush the softer and 
soften too. Destruction and renovation are eternal laws. A 
decayed nation, like a decayed animal, fattens the field for 
enterprize and industry. Egyptians, Babylonians, Medes, the 
mountaneers of Macedon and Epirus, have vanquisht in 
succession, and now are lying like idle and outcast beggars at 
the gates of Eome. Albius ! be certain of this : if we ever lose 
our preponderance we shall deserve to lose it. A weak nation, 
when it is reduced to subjection, may be pitied; but a nation 
once powerful by its institutions, military and civil, when 
it falls, altho' short of subjugation, is despised. The genius 
of Julius Caesar, a man without an equal in the history of the 
world, would have restored our State. Generals whose sole 
ability lay in the arts of corruption were opposed to him ; and, 
fortunately for the senate who appointed them, they failed. In 
Spain and Africa there stil breathed a military spirit ; but in 
his presence it breathed its last. Antonius and Cassius were 
the only great leaders who survived him : Cassius outlived his 
cause ; Antonius his glory. Agrippa, when he had driven him 
into Pelusium and upon his sword, turned his heel on the 
luxuries of Egypt, stood aloof from those of Rome, and was 
venerated at his death greatly more than those who have 
recently been deified. 

Bepose is necessary now to our exhaustion. "We must look 
carefully to our agriculture ; we must conciliate our provinces. 
In no case, however, is military discipline to be neglected, or 
the soldier to be kept long inactive. We will enjoy the 
Saturnian age when Saturn comes back again : meanwhile, let 
us never be forgetful that Mars is the progenitor of our race. 



TIBERIUS AND VIPSANIA. 461 



TIBEEIUS AND VIPSANIA.* 



Vipsania, my Vipsania, whither art thou walking ? 

VIPSANIA. 

Whom do I see? my Tiberius? 

TIBERIUS. 

Ah ! no, no, no ! but thou seest the father of thy little 
Drusus. Press him to thy heart the more closely for this 
meeting, and give him . . 

VIPSANIA. 

Tiberius ! the altars, the gods, the destinies, are between 
us . . I will take it from this hand ; thus, thus shall he 
receive it. 

TIBERIUS. 

Raise up thy face, my beloved ! I must not shed tears. 
Augustus ! Livia ! ye shall not extort them from me. Vip- 
sania ! I may kiss thy head . . for I have saved it. Thou 
sayest nothing. I have wronged thee ; ay ? 

VIPSANIA. 

Ambition does not see the earth she treads on : the rock 
and the herbage are of one substance to her. Let me excuse 

* Vipsaaia, the daughter of Agrippa, was divorced from Tiberius by- 
Augustus and Livia, in order that he might marry Julia, and hold the 
empire by inheritance. He retained such an affection for her, and showed 
it so intensely when he once met her afterward, that every precaution was 
taken lest they should meet again. 

There can be no doubt that the Claudii were deranged in intellect. 
Those of them who succeeded to the empire were by nature no worse 
men than several of their race in the times of the republic. Appius 
Claudius, Appius Ccecus, Publius, Appia, and after these the enemy of 
Cicero, exhibited as ungovernable a temper as the imperial ones, some 
breaking forth into tyranny and lust, others into contempt of, and impre- 
cations against, their country. Tiberius was meditative, morose, suspicious. 
In the pupil of Seneca were dispositions the opposite to-these, with many- 
talents, and some good qualities. They could not disappear on a sudden 
without one of those shocks under which had been engulfed almost every 
member of the family. 



462 TIBERIUS AND VIPSANIA. 

you to my heart, Tiberius. It has many wants ; this is the 
first and greatest. 

TIBERIUS. 

My ambition, I swear by the immortal gods, placed not the 
bar of severance between us. A stronger hand, the hand that 
composes Rome and sways the world . . . 

VIPSANIA. 

. . Overawed Tiberius. I know it; Augustus willed and 
commanded it. 

TIBERIUS. 

And overawed Tiberius ! Power bent, Death terrified, a 
Nero ! What is our race, that any should look down on us 
and spurn us ! Augustus, my benefactor, I have wronged 
thee ! Livia, my mother, this one cruel deed was thine ! To 
reign forsooth is a lovely thing ! womanly appetite ! Who 
would have been before me, though the palace of Caesar cracked 
and split with emperors, while I, sitting in idleness on a cliff 
of Ehodes, eyed the sun as he swang his golden censer athwart 
the heavens, or his image as it overstrode the sea.* I have it 
before me ; and though it seems falling on me, I can smile at 
it ; just as I did from my little favorite skiff, painted round 
with the marriage of Thetis, when the sailors drew their long 
shaggy hair across their eyes, many a stadium away from it, 
to mitigate its effulgence. 

These too were happy days : days of happiness like these I 
could recall and look back upon with unaching brow. 

land of Greece ! Tiberius blesses thee, bidding thee 
rejoice and flourish. 

Why can not one hour, Yipsania, beauteous and light as we 
have led, return ? 

VIPSANIA. 

Tiberius ! is it to me that you were speaking ? I would 
not interrupt you ; but I thought I heard my name as you 
walked away and looked up toward the East. So silent ! 

* The Colossus was thrown down by an earthquake during the war 
between Antiochus and Ptolemy, who sent the Ehodians three thousand 
talents for the restoration of it. Again in the time of Vespasian, " Cose 
Veneris, item Colossi refectorem congiario magnaque mercede donavit." 
Suetonius in Vesp. The first residence of Tiberius in Ehodes was when he 
returned from his Armenian expedition, the last was after his divorce from 
Vipsania and his marriage with Julia. 



TIBERIUS AND VIPSANIA. 463 

TIBERIUS. 

Who dared to call thee ? Thou wert mine before the gods 
. . do they deny it ? Was it my fault . . 

VIPSANIA. 

Since we are separated, and for ever, Tiberius, let us 
think no more on the cause of it. Let neither of us believe 
that the other was to blame : so shall separation be less 
painful. 

TIBERIUS. 

mother ! and did I not tell thee what she was ? patient 
in injury, proud in innocence, serene in grief ! 

VIPSANIA. 

Did you say that too ? but I think it was so : I had felt 
little. One vast wave has washed away the impression of 
smaller from my memory. Could Livia, could your mother, 
could she who was so kind to me . . . 

TIBERIUS. 

The wife of Caesar did it. But hear me now, hear me : be 
calm as I am. No weaknesses are such as those of a mother 
who loves her only son immoderately ; and none are so easily 
worked upon from without. Who knows what impulses she 
received ? She is very, very kind ; but she regards me only ; 
and that which at her bidding is to encompass and adorn me. 
All the weak look after power, protectress of weakness. Thou 
art a woman, Vipsania ! is there nothing in thee to excuse 
my mother ? So good she ever was to me ! so loving ! 

VIPSANIA. 

1 quite forgive her : be tranquil, Tiberius ! 

TIBERIUS. 

Never can I know peace . . never can I pardon . . anyone. 
Threaten me with thy exile, thy separation, thy seclusion ! 
remind me that another climate might endanger thy health ! 
. . There death met me and turned me round. Threaten me 
to take our son from us ! our one boy ! our helpless little one ! 
him whom we made cry because we kissed him both together. 
Rememberest thou ? or dost thou not hear ? turning thus away 
from me ! 

VIPSANIA. 

I hear ; I hear. cease, my sweet Tiberius ! Stamp not 
upon that stone : my heart lies under it. 



464 TIBERIUS AND YIPSANIA. 

TIBERIUS. 

Ay, there again death, and more than death, stood before 
me. she maddened me, my mother did, she maddened me 
. . she threw me to where I am at one breath. The gods can 
not replace me where I was, nor atone to me, nor console me, 
nor restore my senses. To whom can I fly ? to whom can I 
open my heart ? to whom speak plainly ? * There was upon 
the earth a man I could converse with, and fear nothing : 
there was a woman too I could love, and fear nothing. What 
a soldier, what a Roman, was thy father, my young bride ! 
How could those who never saw him have discoursed so rightly 
upon virtue ! 

VIPSANIA. 

These words cool my breast like pressing his urn against it. 
He was brave : shall Tiberius want courage ? 

TIBERIUS. 

My enemies scorn me. I am a garland dropt from a 
triumphal car, and taken up and looked on for the place I 
occupied : and tossed away and laughed at. Senators ! laugh, 
laugh ! Your merits may be yet rewarded . . be of good 
cheer ! Counsel me, in your wisdom, what services I can 
render you, conscript fathers ! 

VIPSANIA. 

This seems mockery : Tiberius did not smile so, once. 

TIBERIUS. 

They had not then congratulated me. 

VIPSANIA. 

On what ? 

TIBERIUS. 

And it was not because she was beautiful, as they thought 
her, and virtuous as I know she is, but because the flowers on 
the altar were to be tied together by my heart-string; On this 
they congratulated me. Their day will come. Their sons 
and daughters are what I would wish them to be : worthy to 
succeed them. 

* The regret of Tiberius at the death of Agrippa may be imagined to 
arise from a cause of which at this moment he was unconscious. If 
Agrippa had lived, Julia, who was his wife, could not have been Tiberius's, 
nor would he and Yipsania have been separated. 



TIBERIUS AND VIPSANIA. 465 

VIPSANIA. 

Where is that quietude, that resignation, that sanctity, that 
heart of true tenderness ? 

TIBERIUS. 

Where is my love ? my love ? 

VIPSANIA. 

Cry not thus aloud, Tiberius ! there is an echo in the place. 
Soldiers and slaves may burst in upon us. 

TIBERIUS. 

And see my tears ? There is no echo, Yipsania ! why alarm 
and shake me so ? We are too high here for the echoes : the 
city is below us. Methinks it trembles and totters : would it 
did ! from the marble quays of the Tiber to this rock. There 
is a strange buzz and murmur in my brain ; but I should listen 
so intensely, I should hear the rattle of its roofs, and shout 
with joy. 

VIPSANIA. 

Calm, my life ! calm this horrible transport. 



Spake I so loud ? Did I indeed then send my voice after a 
lost sound, to bring it back ; and thou fanciedest it an echo ? 
Wilt not thou laugh with me, as thou wert wont to do, at 
such an error ? What was I saying to thee, my tender love, 
when I commanded . . I know not whom . . to stand back, 
on pain of death ? Why starest thou on me in such agony ? 
Have I hurt thy fingers, child ? I loose them : now let me 
look ! Thou turnest thine eyes away from me. Oh ! oh ! I 
hear my crime ! Immortal gods ! I cursed then audibly, and 
before the sun, my mother ! 



H H 



466 EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 



EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 

SENECA. 

Epictetus ! I desired your master Epaphroditus to send you 
hither, having been much pleased with his report of your con- 
duct, and much surprised at the ingenuity of your writings. 

EPICTETUS. 

Then I am afraid, my friend . . . 

SENECA. 

My friend ! are these the expressions . . Well, let it pass. 
Philosophers must bear bravely. The people expect it. 

EPICTETUS. 

Are philosophers then only philosophers for the people ? 
and, instead of instructing them, must they play tricks before 
them ? Give me rather the gravity of dancing dogs. Their 
motions are for the rabble ; their reverential eyes and pendent 
paws are under the pressure of awe at a master; but they are 
dogs, and not below their destinies. 

SENECA. 

Epictetus ! I will give you three talents to let me take that 
sentiment for my own. 

EPICTETUS. 

I would give thee twenty, if 1 had them, to make it thine. 

SENECA. 

You mean, by lending to it the graces of my language. 

EPICTETUS. 

I mean, by lending it to thy conduct. And now let me 
console and comfort thee, under the calamity I brought on 
thee by calling thee my friend. If thou art not my friend, why 
send for me ? Enemy I can have none : being a slave, 
Fortune has now done with me. 



Continue then your former observations. What were you 
saying ? 



EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 467 

EPICTETUS. 

That which thou interruptedst. 

SENECA. 

What was it ? 

EPICTETUS. 

I should have remarked that, if thou foundest ingenuity in 
my writings, thou must have discovered in them some devia- 
tion from the plain homely truths of Zeno and Cleanthes. 

SENECA. 

We all swerve a little from them. 

EPICTETUS. 

In practice too ? 

SENECA. 

Yes, even in practice, I am afraid. 

EPICTETUS. 

Often? 

SENECA. 

Too often. 

EPICTETUS. 

Strange ! I have been attentive, and yet have remarked but 
one difference among you great personages at Eome. 

SENECA. 

What difference fell under your observation ? 

EPICTETUS. 

Crates and Zeno and Cleanthes taught us, that our desires 
were to be subdued by philosophy alone. In this city, their 
acute and inventive scholars take us aside, and show us that 
there is not only one way, but two. 

SENECA. 

Two ways ? 

EPICTETUS. 

They whisper in our ear, " These two ways are philosophy 
and enjoyment : the wiser man will take the readier, or, not 
finding it, the alternative." Thou reddenest. 

SENECA. 

Monstrous degeneracy. 

EPICTETUS. 

What magnificent rings ! I did not notice them until thou 
liftedst up thy hands to heaven, in detestation of such 
effeminacy and impudence. 

H H 2 



468 EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 

SENECA. 

The rings are not amiss : my rank rivets them upon my 
fingers : I am forced to wear them. Our emperor gave me 
one, Epaphroditus another, Tigellinus the third. I cannot lay 
them aside a single day, for fear of offending the gods, and 
those whom they love the most worthily. 

EPICTETUS. 

Although they make thee stretch out thy fingers, like the 
arms and legs of one of us slaves upon a cross. 

SENECA. 

horrible ! Eind some other resemblance. 

EPICTETUS. 

The extremities of a fig-leaf. 

SENECA. 

Ignoble ! 

EPICTETUS. 

The claws of a toad, trodden on or stoned. 

SENECA. 

You have great need, Epictetus, of an instructor in 
eloquence and rhetoric : you want topics and tropes and 
figures. 

EPICTETUS. 

1 have no room for them. They make such a buzz in the 
house, a man's own wife can not understand what he says 
to her. 

SENECA. 

Let us reason a little upon style. I would set you right, 
and remove from before you the prejudices of a somewhat 
rustic education. We may adorn the simplicity of the wisest. 

EPICTETUS. 

Thou canst not adorn simplicity. What is naked or 
defective is susceptible of decoration : what is decorated is 
simplicity no longer. Thou mayest give another thing in 
exchange for it ; but if thou wert master of it, thou wouldst 
preserve it inviolate. It is no wonder that we mortals, little 
able as we are to see truth, should be less able to express it. 

SENECA. 

You have formed at present no idea of style. 



EP1CTETUS AND SENECA. 469 

EPICTETUS. 

I never think about it. First I consider whether what I 
am about to say is true; then whether I can say it with 
brevity, in such a manner as that others shall see it as clearly 
as I do in the light of truth ; for if they survey it as an 
ingenuity, my desire is ungratified, my duty unfulfilled. I go 
not with those who dance round the image of Truth, less out 
of honour to her than to display their agility and address. 

SENECA. 

We must attract the attention of readers by novelty and 
force and grandeur of expression. 

EPICTETUS. 

We must. Nothing is so grand as truth, nothing so forcible, 
nothing so novel. 

SENECA. 

Sonorous sentences are wanted, to awaken the lethargy of 
indolence. 

EPICTETUS. 

Awaken it to what ? Here lies the question ; and a 
weighty one it is. If thou awakenest men where they can see 
nothing and do no work, it is better to let them rest : but will 
not they, thinkest thou, look up at a rainbow, unless they are 
called to it by a clap of thunder ? 

SENECA. 

Your early youth, Epictetus, has been I will not say 
neglected, but cultivated with rude instruments and unskilful 
hands. 

EPICTETUS. 

I thank God for it. Those rude instruments have left the 
turf lying yet toward the sun • and those unskilful hands have 
plucked out the docks. 

SENECA. 

We hope and believe that we have attained a vein of 
eloquence,, brighter and more varied than has been hitherto 
laid open to the world. 

EPICTETUS. 

Than any in the Greek ? 

SENEGA. 

We trust so. 

EPICTETUS. 

Than your Cicero's ? 



470 EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 

SENECA. 

If the declaration may be made without an offence to 
modesty. Surely you can not estimate or value the eloquence 
of that noble pleader. 

EPICTETUS. 

Imperfectly 5 not being born in Italy ; and the noble pleader 
is a much less man with me than the noble philosopher. I 
regret that having farms and villas, he would not keep his 
distance from the pumping up of foul words, against thieves, 
cut-throats, and other rogues : and that he lied, sweated, and 
thumped his head and thighs, in behalf of those who were 
no better. 

SENECA. 

Senators must have clients, and must protect them. 

EPICTETUS. 

Innocent or guilty ? 

SENECA. 

Doubtless. 

EPICTETUS. 

If it becomes a philosopher to regret at all, and if I regret 
what is, and might not be, I may regret more what both is 
and must be. However it is an amiable tiling, and no small 
merit in the wealthy, even to trifle and play at their leisure 
hours with philosophy. It can not be expected that such a 
personage should espouse her, or should recommend her as an 
inseparable mate to his heir. 

SENECA. 

I would. 

EPICTETUS. 

Yes, Seneca, but thou hast no son to make the match for ; 
and thy recommendation, I suspect, would be given him before 
he could consummate the marriage. Every man wishes his 
sons to be philosophers while they are young; but takes 
especial care, as they grow older, to teach them its insufficiency 
and unfitness for their intercourse with mankind. The paternal 
voice says, " You must not be particular : you are about to 
have a profession to live by : follow those who have thriven 
the best in it/' Now among these, whatever be the profession, 
canst thou point out to me one single philosopher ? 

SENECA. 

Not just now. Nor, upon reflection, do I think it feasible. 



EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 471 

EPIOTETUS. 

Thou indeed mayest live much to thy ease and satisfaction 
with philosophy, having (they say) two thousand talents. 

SENECA. 

And a trifle to spare . . pressed upon me by that godlike 
youth, my pupil Nero. 

EPICTETUS. 

Seneca ! where God hath placed a mine, he hath placed the 
materials of an earthquake. 

SENECA. 

A true philosopher is beyond the reach of Fortune. 

EPICTETUS. 

• The false one thinks himself so. Fortune cares little about 
philosophers ; but she remembers where she hath set a rich 
man, and she laughs to see the Destinies at his door. # 

* In order of time the Lucian would come last, but it seemed better to 
separate Greek and Roman. 



472 REFLECTIONS ON THE 



KEFLECTIONS ON THE CONVEBSATION OF THE 
CICEEOS. 



Some of the opinions here attributed to Cicero, and particularly those 
on the agrarian law, are at variance with what he has expressed, not 
only in his Orations, but also in his three books Be Officiis, which he 
appears to have written under a vehement fear that either this or some- 
thing similar would deprive him of his possessions. Hence he speaks 
of the Gracchi with an asperity which no historian has countenanced, and 
of Agis, without a word of commendation or pity. When, however, 
he perceived that in the midst of dangers his property was untouched, 
it must have occurred to so sagacious a reasoner, that if an agrarian 
law had been enacted, the first triumvirate could never have existed, 
and that he himself had remained, as he ought to have been, the 
leader of the commonwealth. It is to be lamented that he should 
have mentioned Crassus as a man he did not hate. Dion Cassius, in his 
twenty-ninth book, says he wrote some tremendous things against him, 
and a good many of them : iroWars drj teal 5e*ra : giving the manuscript 
sealed up into the hands of his son, and ordering that it should be pub- 
lished after his death. Such a politician ought to have foreseen that the 
injunction was unlikely to be carried into effect. As there was no danger 
impending over the life of Cicero while Crassus held a place in the 
triumvirate, it may be suspected that the sealed paper related to another 
of its members ; for it would be impossible to add anything worse to what 
he already had published against Crassus. For instance, " Qui videt domi 
tuse pariter accusatorum atque judicum consociatos greges ; qui nocentes 
et pecuniosos reos eodem te auctore corruptelam judicii molientes; qui 
tuas mercedum pactiones in patrociniis, intercessiones pecuniarum in 
coitionibus candidatorum, dimissiones libertorum ad fcenerandas diripien- 
dasque provincias ; qui expulsiones vicinorum ; qui latrocinia in agris ; 
qui cum servis, cum libertis, cum clientibus societates ; qui possessiones 
vacuas ; qui proscriptiones locupletum ; qui csedes muniGipiorum ; qui 
illam Sullani temporis messem recordetur; qui testamenta subjecta, qui 
sublatos tot homines, qui denique omnia venalia, delectum, decretum, 
alienam, suam, sententiam, forum, domum, vocem, silentium." Parad. VI. 

The description of such a government is sufficient to recommend its 
abolition. He illustrates it further. " Desitum est videri quidquam in socios 
iniquum, cum extitisset etiam in cives tanta crudelitas . . Multa prseterea 
commemorarem nefaria in socios, si hoc uno solo quidquam vidisset 
indignius . . . Optimatibus tuis nihil confido. Sed video nullam esse 
rempublicam, nullum senatum, nulla judicia, nullam in ullo nostrum 
dignitatem . . . Jure igitur plectimur: nisi enim multorum impunita 



CONVERSATION OF THE CICEROS. 473 

scelera tulissemus, &c. . . . Non igitur utilis ilia L. Philippi Q. filii 
sententia,, quas civitates L. Sulla pecunid acceptd ex SC. liberavisset, ut 
hae rursus vectigales essent, neque his pecuniam quam pro libertate dedis- 
sent redderemus : turpe imperio ! piratarurn enim melior fides quam 
senatus." It follows then, a fortiori, that if pirates should be destroyed, 
the senate should. 

Cicero never entertained long together the same opinion of Pompeius. 
A little before the death of Ciodius he writes thus: " Pompeius nostri 
amoves, quod mihi summo dolori est, ipse se afnixit." Soon after thus : 
" Pompeius a me valde contendit de reditu in gratiam ; sed adhuc nihil 
profecit, nee, si ullam partem libertatis tenebo, proficiet." He speaks of 
him to Atticus as follows : " ISTon mihi satis idonei sunt auctores ii qui a te 
probantur : quod enim unquam in republica forte factum extitit ? aut quis 
ab iis ullam rem laude dignam desiderat? nee mehercule laudandos 
existimo qui trans mare belli parandi causa profecti sunt . . . Quis autem 
est tanta quidem de re quin varie secum ipse disputet 1 Simul et elicere 
cupio sententiam tuam ; si manet, ut firmior sim, si mutata est, ut tibi 
assentiar." The character and designs of Pompeius and his legitimates are 
developed thus : " Mirandum in modum Cneius noster Sullani regni 
similitudinem concupivit. Consilium est suffocare urbem et Italiam fame ; 
deinde agros vastare, urere. Promitto tibi, si valebit, tegulam ilium in 
Italia nullam relicturum. Mene igitur socio? contra mehercule meum 
judicium, et contra omnium antiquorum auctoritatem . . . Quae minae 
municipiis ! quae nominatim viris bonis ! quas denique omnibus qui 
remanissent ! quam crebro illud, Sulla potuit, ego non potero V 

The conduct of the Gracchi was approved by the wisest and most honest 
of their contemporaries. Laelius, the friend of Scipio, desisted from his 
support of Tiberius only when, as Plutarch says, he was compelled by the 
apprehension of greater evil. But surely a man so prudent as Laelius must 
have foreseen all the consequences, and have known the good or the evil 
of them, and would not have desisted when, the matter having been 
agitated and the measure agreed on, every danger was over from taking it, 
and the only one that could arise was from its rejection, after the hopes 
and expectations of the people had been stimulated and excited. Hence 
we may be induced to believe that Scipio, in compliance with the wishes of 
the senate, persuaded his friend to desist from the undertaking. Cicero, 
in mentioning it, expresses himself in these words : " Duos sapientissimos 
et clarissimos fratres, Publium Crassum et Publium Scasvolam, aiunt Tiberio 
Graccho auctores legum fuisse, alterum quidem, ut videmus, palam, alterum, 
ut suspicamur, obscurius." Acad. Qucest. iv. Mutianus Crassus (brother 
of Publius) and Appius Claudius were also his supporters. It is beyond a 
doubt that Tiberius Gracchus was both politic and equitable in his plan of 
dividing among the poorer citizens, whose debts had been incurred by 
services rendered to their country, the lands retained by the rich in 
violation of the Licinian law. He was called unjust toward the inhabitants 
of Latium and the allies, in proposing to deprive them of that which the 
Romans had given them, but instead of which, to indemnify themselves 
for the grant, they had imposed a tribute. Gracchus wished to allay the 
irritation of the people, and to render them inoffensive to the state, by 
giving them useful occupations in the cares and concerns of property. The 



474 REFLECTIONS ON THE 

Latins and allies would have been indemnified : for the tax imposed on 
them would have been removed, and the freedom of the city granted to 
them. The senate would perhaps have been somewhat less hostile to 
Tiberius Gracchus, had he not also proposed that the money left by Attalus 
to the Roman people should go to its destination. They were stimulated, 
if not by interest, by power, to invoke the assistance of Scipio against the 
popular party ; and he was conducted home by them the day before his 
death ; which appears rather to have been hastened by the fears and 
jealousy of the senate than by the revenge of the opposition, none of whom 
at that time could have had access to him, his house being filled and 
surrounded by their adversaries. The senate had reasons, suddenly but 
not vainly conceived, for suspicion of Scipio. They dreaded the dictatorial 
power to be conferred on him, in order that he might settle the common- 
wealth : they were dissatisfied at the doubts he entertained of guilt in 
Gracchus, of whom he declared his opinion that he was justly slain if he had 
attempted to possess the supreme power : which expression proves that he 
doubted, or rather that he disbelieved it, and is equivalent to the declara- 
tion that he did not deserve death for any other of his actions or intentions. 
They clearly saw that a man of his equity and firmness would not leave 
unpunished those of their order who had instigated Popilius Lsenas, 
Opimius, and Metellus, to their cruelties against the partisans of Gracchus. 
Opimius alone had put to death by a judicial process no fewer than three 
thousand Roman citizens, whose only crime was that of demanding what 
had been left them by Attalus, and promised them by the rulers of the 
state. 

A clever satirist, often a philosopher, and sometimes a poet, asks 



" Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes 



?" 



The answer is : any dispassionate man. For there is no sedition in claiming 
a due ; there is none in resisting the robbery of earnings ; but there is in 
conspiring to murder, or to drive from house and home such opponents. 
The worst of all seditions is the seditio sedentium. The newly-found 
treatise of Cicero, De Re Publicd, supplies us with a few more sentences of 
illustration and subjects of remark. It is amusing to see with what eagerness 
a sentence that leans toward kingship is seized by the editor. He exclaims, 
" Notalile Ciceronis dictum de monarchic prsestantia ! quam in sententiam 
plerique sen veteres sen recentiores politici pedibus eunt." The sentence is, 
" Nam ipsum regale genus civitatis non modo non est reprehendendum, 
sed haud scio an reliquis simplicibus longe anteponendum, si ullum probarem 
simplex reipublicas genus : sed ita quoad statum suum retinet ; is est autem 
status, ut unius perpetua potestate et justitia, omnique sapientia, regatur 
salus et aequabilitas et otium civium." Certainly, if a king were perfectly 
just and perfectly wise, his government would be preferable to any other; 
but it is childish to speculate on such an occurrence, with the experience of 
ages before us, leading us to so different a conclusion. Scipio speaks of a 
republic with a king presiding over it ; the editor talks of monarchy, as we 
understand the word. Scipio adds, " Desunt omnino ei populi multa qui 
sub rege est, in primis libertas, quce non in eo est ut justo ulamur domino, 
sed ut nutto." Can anything be more temperate and rational than these 



CONVERSATION OF THE CICEROS. 475 

expressions ? The first of which designate only the utility of the form, and 
that conditionally ; and the last give an excellent reason why even the 
form itself should not be admitted, proving the utility of the form to be 
incomparably less than what must be given up for it. In going on, he 
praises L. Brutus, " Vir ingenio et virtute prsestans, &c. primusque in hac 
civitate docuit in conservanda civium libertate esse privatum neminem ;" 
which the editor calls immanent injustamque sententiam. Could he not 
perceive that he should have placed wjustam before immanem, if he wished 
to avoid the ridicule of men and boys 1 And was he ignorant that a man 
capable of pronouncing a sentence which is unjust and outrageous is 
unworthy of quotation as an authority ] Yet he runs toward him agape 
for it, when he fancies h,e can pluck out from the looser folds of his gown 
something to invigorate and support him. Cicero in his own person uses 
nearly the same words (Epist. x. ad Familiar es) : " Kullo publico consilio 
rempublicam liberasti, quo etiam est ilia res major et clarior." The same 
opinion is also given by him in the Tusculan Questions. " Xunquam 
privatum esse sapientem, &c." (iv.) Scipio, in commending the advantages 
that, under conditions quite problematical, may attend the government of 
one magistrate, adds, " Sed tamen inclinatum et quasi prorwtm ad pernicio- 
sissimum statum:" and afterward, " Quis enim hunc hominem rite 
dixerit, qui sibi cum suis civibus, qui denique cum omni hominum genere 
nullam juris communionem, nullam humanitatis societatem velit." Here is 
indeed the nobih Ciceronis dictum, which ought to be engraven on every 
public building, from the school-room to the palace. The education of 
kings leaves few either wise or honest. The better citizens receive the 
better education : they are mutual checks one upon another, while kings 
are mutual guards and fosterers of each other's tyranny. That in fact, 
whatever it be, is the best form of government, which the most effectually 
excludes the wicked and unwise, and the most readily admits the wise and 
virtuous. The two worst are ochlocracy and despotism, both for the same 
reason : in both there is will without counsel, energy without object, and 
action without reflection. Ochlocracy is the more tolerable as being the 
more transient : one always passes into the other, as its first step. Scipio 
argues weakly, and Cicero perhaps intends that he should do so, in saying, 
"Illud tamen non adsentior tibi, prsestare regi optimates : si enim sapientia 
est quae gubernat rem publicam, quid tandem interest haec in uno ne sit an 
in pluribus?" Here is a petitio principii which on no account can be 
granted. It is surely more probable that wisdom should reside among 
many, and those the best educated and of mature age, than with one only, 
and him the worst educated, often of age not mature, and more often 
bearing thick upon him throughout life the vices of youth and the incon- 
siderateness of childhood. If Cicero spoke sincerely, he was both foolish 
and flagitious in praising those who slew Caesar : for never was there a man 
so capable of governing alone and well. I will not believe that he was 
led astray by Plato, who asserts in his fourth book that it is of little 
consequence whether a state be governed by many or one, if that one is 
obedient to the laws. Surely a king can more easily find those who will 
assist him in subverting them than simple citizens can, and is usually more 
inclined to do it, and is more easily persuaded that it is his interest. 
Aristoteles, as usual, speaks less idly : what is remarkable is, that his 



476 REFLECTIONS ON THE 

opinion squares perfectly with the Epicurean doctrine. TeAos fikv ovv 
iroXeccs rb ev Qjir tovto 5' can rb £rju €vbai/j.6uoos kclI KaAoos. Now this is 
impossible under men worse and less wise (as hath been the case nine 
hundred and thirty years in the thousand) than those who occupy the 
middle ranks in life, to say nothing of those who are uncontaminated by 
their example and undebased by their tyranny ; such men as would exist 
if they did not. Governments must be constituted according to the habits 
and propensities of the governed, in which the moral springs from the 
physical. The Arab will always be free : the Frenchman often, but never 
long : in the Englishman there exists what ought to be expected from the 
union of Norman and Saxon : combinations of various kinds militate against 
the Italian, from whom all traces of ancient institutions have been effaced for 
ages, excepting of religion. The Roman people was merely the people of one 
city; its physical peculiarities could not extend themselves, and were 
entirely lost in a succession of conquerors. But the voice of history refutes 
the conclusion, which certain writers would draw from the treatise of 
Cicero, and teaches us that the republican form of government was best 
adapted to the nation, and that under it the Romans were virtuous and 
powerful, to a degree which they never attained under kings and emperors. 
Their seven kings, after two centuries, left a dominion less extensive than 
an English county or an American estate. In the same number of years, 
under a republic, the same people, if subjects and citizens may be called 
the same, conquered nearly the whole known world : whatever was wealthy, 
whatever was powerful, whatever was tyrannical and despotic, fell down 
before them, or followed in dejection their triumphal car. 

We have seen what their kings did : let us now see what the wisest and 
powerfullest of their emperors could do. 

Augustus lost his army in Germany, and commemorated by a trophy the 
capture of a few castles on the Alps : so greatly and so suddenly had fallen 
the glory of Rome, although ruled by a sagacious prince, when the discretion 
of one was substituted for the councils and interests and energies of many. 

It has been the fashion, and not only of late years, but for ages, to 
represent the Roman form of government (when unperverted) as aristo- 
cratical: this is erroneous. Cicero himself says, "nihil sacrosanctum 
esse potest, nisi quod plebs populusve jusserit" The people chose all 
the great functionaries, excepting the interex : he appointed the dictator, 
who is falsely thought to have possessed absolute power, even during the 
short period for which he was created. Polybius, an author to be depended 
on in whatever he relates as fact, mentioning the appointment of Fabius 
Maximus to the dictatorship, goes out of his road to pay hornage to the 
fasces of the Tribunes. " Whereas the consul" says he, " is preceded by 
twelve axes, the dictator is preceded by sixteen : the consuls must refer many 
things to the senate ; but the dictator is independent of every other power, 
excepting the tribunes" B. 6. Now dependency is not headship. Polybius, 
who wrote thus, lived intimately with Scipio ; and Scipio is represented 
as hostile to the constitution of his country, and a stickler for royalty ! 
He certainly was no zealous advocate of the tribunitial power : yet his 
friend had no hesitation in speaking thus of it ; for such was its acknow- 
ledged rank and dignity. When Fabius Maximus would have punished 
Minutius, the tribunes interposed their authority. The senatorial formula, 



CONVERSATION OF THE CICEROS. 477 

1 Videant Consules ne quid detrimenti capiat Res Publica,' hath misled many, 
and indeed misled even Cicero himself, who offended against the forms of 
law when he saved the commonwealth from Catilina. The supreme power 
was never legally in the consuls, but constantly in the tribunes of the 
people ; so that Sigonius is wrong in his assertion, " Consules ab omnibus 
magistratibus concionem avocare potuisse, ab Us neminem" Nothing is more 
common than the interference of the tribunes against the consuls. T. Livius 
(1. xliv.) relates that the effects of Tiberius Gracchus the elder, who had 
been consul and censor, were consecrated (which in arbitrary governments 
is called confiscated) because he had disobeyed an order of the tribune 
L. Flavius ; a tribune committed to prison the consul Metellus : the censor 
Appius was punished in the same manner by the tribunitian authority. 
Carbo, who had been thrice consul, was condemned to death by Pompeius 
from the tribunitian chair. Drusus, as tribune, sent the consul Philippus 
to prison with a halter round his neck, obtritd gula (Florus, civ.). One 
Vectius was slain for not rising up before a tribune. Arrogantly and 
unjustly as the power in this instance was applied, it was constitutionally. 
Plutarch relates part of a speech by Tiberius Gracchus, in which the 
authority is mentioned as a thing settled. " It is hard," he says, " if a 
consul may be thrown»into prison by a tribune/ and a tribune can not be 
removed from office by the people." 

With all these facts in his memory, Cicero stil would consider the 
legitimate government of Rome as an aristocracy; for otherwise how 
could he himself be aristocratical, which he avows he was] He wrote 
his treatise De Republicd ten years before his death, when the more costly 
part of his experience was wanting. In our dialogue he is represented 
as on the verge of a political world, of w T hich he had been the mover 
and protector, while the elements of it announce to him that it is bursting 
under his feet. 

Hardly is that man to be called inconsistent, who, guided by recent facts, 
turns at last to wiser sentiments, opposite as they may be to those he 
entertained the greater part of his life. If anyone shall assert that here 
is attributed to Cicero an inconsistency unwarranted by his writings, the 
answer is, that there is manifestly a much greater between the facts he 
states in these quotations and the conclusions he appears by his line of 
policy to have drawn from them ; and that, taking his own statement, no 
injustice is done to his discernment and ratiocination, in bringing home 
to him a new inference. Whatever be the defects of this memorable 
writer, we should disclose them hesitatingly and reluctantly ; for in compa- 
rison with the meanest of his productions, how inelegant is the most 
elaborate composition of our times ! 

Few have grasp enough to comprehend at once all the greatness of a 
great writer ; somewhat is generally near at hand to distract their atten- 
tion ; some salient point to allure them : they fly toward it just as birds 
towards a sudden flash in the night, narrow as may be its space, and 
brief its duration. There are critics who take their station on glittering 
vanes or fretted pinnacles, and seem to have an appetite for wind. 
Usually they alight on something strange, and call it original ; on some- 
thing perverse, and call it strong ; on something clamorous, and call it 
eloquent. Cicero is not the author for them; to them he is yet in exile. 



478 REFLECTIONS, ETC. 

Attentive study, scrupulous examination, strict comparison, are insuf- 
ficient ; yet even these are wanting to many gentlemen who take the chair 
and talk fluently about his writings. 

Now let us pass from the philosopher and pleader to the man. Morally he 
was among the best public men of his age ; perhaps the very best, being 
quite exempt from its besetting sin, peculation. He had no vices ; few 
faults ; weaknesses he had, as all men have : his vanity was exorbitant, 
insatiable ; and, more effeminately than any Roman, he was prostrated by 
calamity. Many deplored his death, many stil commiserate it : unreason- 
ably. It was without long suffering, without time for vain regrets, and 
equally vain expectations. Worse days than the past were coming ; had 
come. Preferable was it to die by the sudden stroke of a murderer than 
by a slowly corroded heart. From M. Antonius, against whom he had 
inveyed without remission, and whom he would have driven out of his 
country and have prosecuted unto death, from M. Antonius, who forgot 
no adherent and forgave no enemy, well might he foresee what befell him. 
His enfeebled health and broken spirit could ill have raised him up 
against the contemptuous neglect of the colder and crueler and more 
ungrateful Pompeius. Happily for him and for Italy, the sands of 
Egypt had drunk the blood of the blood-thirsty ; find a generous enemy, 
(if enemy he must be called) paid to Cicero those honours which, from his 
first reception at Pharsalia, he never had received, Caesar knew perfectly 
what the other never could be taught, the glory of preserving one grand 
pillar, although not erect, amid the demolitions and cinders of the 
Commonwealth. 



INDEX. 



N.B. — The names printed in small capitals are those of the Interlocutors in 
a Conversation. 



Abstinence, axiom concerning, 251 

Absurdities, gross, usually proceed from 
the gravest men, 117 ; 'the adoption of 
another's, inexcusable, it. ; escape notice 
by familiarity, 176 

Academy, the New, tendency of its tenets, 
428 

Achilles and Helena, 1 

Action, in oratory, 158 ; not used by Peri- 
cles, 159 ; remark ou motives to, 424 

Activity, necessary to a people, 47 

iEsCHINES AND PhOCION, 172 

JEschines, his gratitude to Phocion, 172, 
173; his unpopularity, ib. ; his rivalry 
with and jealousy of Demosthenes, 179, 
et seq. 

-<Eschylus, his dramatic contest with 
Sophocles, 65, and note 

JEsop and Rhodope, 7 

Affections, the, stirred in the hour of death, 
227 

Affliction, effect of, 26 

Africanus (Scipio), 350; his plan for en- 
countering the Carthaginian elephants, 
352 

Age, reflections on, 264—266, 271, 272 

Aged, the, insensible to new impressions, 
245 ; all Essenes, 333 

Agrarian laws of the Gracchi, 409, 410 

Agrippa, his character, 464; regret of 
Tiberius at his death, ib., note 

Air, potency of the, 77 ; how impersonated 
in Mythology, 78 

Alcibiades and Xenophon, 141 

Alcibiades, his good-nature, 84, 85; his 
treatment of the people of Melos, 85 ; his 
disfiguration of the statues of Hermes, 
142 

Alenadai, allies of Xerxes, 57 

Alexander and the Priest of Hahmon, 
184 

Alexander, his character and actions, 81, 
170, 203, 204, 217, 218 ; his pretensions to 
a divine origin rebuked by the Priest of 
Hammon, 184, et seq.; his conduct 
towards Aristoteles, 199, 202 ; compared 



with Epaminondas, 205 ; doubts respect- 
ing his death and tomb, 212, and note; 
his title to greatness examined, 329 ; a 
curse to the earth, ib.; not skilled in 
sieges, 354 ; his inferiority to Hannibal, 
ib., 355 

Alexander of Pherai, 154 ; of Pherse, 401 

Allegories, the, of Homer, 119 ; of Plato, 
306, 307 

Allegory, period of its introduction into 
Greece uncertain, 119; not a basis for 
the highest poetry, 306 

Ally, policy to be observed towards an, 139 

Alopiconos, fable of, 13 

Alum, use of, in rendering substances 
incombustible, 386 

Ambition, of orators in a republic, 171, 
172 ; the most inconsiderate of passions, 
206; dissuasives from unpatriotic, 401, 
402 ; another form of avarice, 407, 408 

Anacreon and Polycrates, 43 

Analogy, must be considered in the com- 
parison of beautiful objects, 105, 106 

Anaxagoras, his opinions respecting the 
sun and moon, 126, 127 ; his wisdom as a 
natural philosopher, 127 ; never decried 
by Socrates, 128; more sublime than 
Plato, 299 ; his life a commentary on his 
doctrines, 300 

Androgyne, antiquity of the, 116 note ; the 
notion spiritualised in Shakspeare, ib.] 
its physical absurdity, 300 

Anecdote of Rhodope's father, 27—32; 
Anacreon and Hylactor, 53, 54; Chloros, 
68 — 70; Alexaretes, 69; Aneedestatos, 
the Athenian orator, 161 ; the old woman 
and Demosthenes, 180 ; Phocion and the 
officer at Heraclea, 181 ; Metanyctius, 
210, 211; Sosimenes, 238, 239; Xeno- 
phanes and his horse, 284, 285; the 
Gasteres, a fraternity of priests, 316— 
321; the miracle of. Aulus of Pelusium, 
323—326; Euthymedes and Thelymnia, 
356 — 369 ; Fcedirupa and Gentius, 419 — 
421; Morus, 429; Aquilius Cimber, 437 
—439 



480 



INDEX. 



Anger, remark on, in argument, 428; when 
most irrational, 437 

Animals, possess reason and reflection, 
124; are not malicious, ib. ; remarks on 
their imputed powers of speech, 315 

Ankesmos, 176, and note 

Anniversary of a friend's death, pleasure 
derived from its observance, 443, 444 

Antonius, outlived hte glory, 460; his 
character, and treatment of Cicero, 478 

Aoudris, siege of, by Thoutmosis, 116 

Apollo, priestess of, her declaration re- 
specting Socrates, 128 

Apologue of Truth, written by Critobulus, 
439—441 

Archelaus, his patronage of Euripides, 112 

Archimedes, his merit as a philosopher, 385 

Argonauts, the memorials they erected, 
destroyed by Alexander, 203; doubts 
respecting the, ib. 

Argument, anger in, what it proves, 428 

Aristocracy, definition of an hereditary, 
178 ; a mercantile, unstabile, 348 

Aristophanes, his genius, 303 

Aristoteles and Callisthexes, 199 

Aristoteles, his appointment at the court 
of Philip, 80, 83; criticism of a passage 
in his Ethics, 81 ; his character as a phi- 
losopher, 83 ; remarks on his thoughts 
and style, 102, 153, 158, 205, 213, 214, 257, 
308, 445 ; his Scolion on Virtue, 102 ; his 
indifference to religion, 104; ill-treated 
by Alexander, 199, 202 ; his style formed 
on that of Phocion, 205 ; his opinions on 
government compared with Plato's, 215 — 
217, 475; his Polity written after Plato's, 
215 note ; first gave system to philosophy, 
257 ; never a trifier, 445 

Armies, annihilation of the two greatest, 64 

Armour, use of gorgeous, reprobated, 58 ; 
its utility in war considered, ib.; pro- 
posed substitution of cork for iron, 59 

Artabaxus axd Xerxes, 55 

Artabanus, character of, 62 

Arts, the illusion aimed at in the, neither 
can nor ought to be complete, 253 

Asdrubal, self-immolation of his wife, 345 

Aspasia, characteristics of, 103, 104; her 
religious laxity, 104; fooleries put into 
her mouth by Plato, 107 

Astronomy, advice with regard to, 260 

Atheists, who are the worst, 145; but few 
in the world, 282 

Athenians, their character, 35, 126, 128, 
242, 243; their glorious deeds, 111; 
critics in oratory, 166 ; their intemperate 
joy at Philip's death, 170; bribed by 
Philip, 178 

Athens, her flourishing condition in the 
time of Pericles, 64, et seq.; structures of, 
at the same period, 64 note ; description 
of a procession at, 71; preserved her 
liberty against the world, 111 ; her laws, 
ib., 433 ; legendary antiquity of, 117 ; 
advantages of her constitution, 155 

Attalus, his legacy to the Koman people, 474 

Attica, encomium on, 115, 116 

Augurv, birds of, 135 : the Greeks expert 
in, 139 

Augustus, his character, 476; diminution 
of the national glory under, ib. 

Austerity, remark on, 333 



Babylon, presumed general wretchedness 
of its habitations, 350 

Banquet, absurdities in Plato's, 116, and 
note, 304 

Banter, the worst species of wit, 303 

Barbarian, origin of the term as used by 
the Greeks, 134 

Barbarians, their titular epithets, 68; 
character of their rulers, 203, 218 

Barbarism, the worst of, 432, 433 

Beauty, whimsical graduations in, 105, 106; 
extreme, in women, deficient in expres- 
sion, 137 

Belief, acts differently on different hearts, 
225 ; an aid to reason, 281 ; in a future 
life, remarks on a, 416 

Ber-ber, an African term, origin of bar- 
barian, 134 

Biography, usefulness of, 422 ; its repre- 
sentation of great men necessarily 
inadequate, 423 

Birthplaces, of illustrious men, claim but a 
fortuitous honour, 66 ; disgraced by their 
non-residence, 67 

Blindness, characteristics of, 289 ; how 
sometimes caused, 460 

Bliss, the supremacy of, what, 246 

Body, the, a disease to the spirit, 425 

Bribery, observations on, 178 

Brutus (Marcus), his character, 405, 406 



Csecilius (Cains), his report concerning the 
Christians in Bithynia, 328 

CAESAR AND LUCULLUS, 383 

Csesar, ignominiously treated by Pompeius, 
383; his love of art, 386 note; ashamed 
of his colleagues in the Triumvirate, 
398 ; his proposal to Lucullus, ib. ; 
resolves to strike for the supreme power, 
401 ; his generous behaviour to Quinctus 
Cicero, 404; his character, 405; his 
death compared with that of Sertorius, 
ib. ; his style and conversational talents, 
ib., 458 ; remarks on his deification, 
453, 454 ; verged on atheism, 454 ; with- 
out an equal in the history of the world, 
460 ; his capacity for governing alone, 
475 ; his noble treatment of Cicero, 478 

Callisthexes axd Aristoteles, 199 

Callousness, how produced, 121 

Calvus, preferred by some to Horace, 456 

Capitals, Asiatic, wretchedness of the 
people's habitations in, 350 

Capua, remarks on Hannibal's stay at, 
371, 372 ; imputed effects of its luxury 
incredible, 372 

Carneades, his character, 295 

Carthage, destruction of, 4342, et seq.', 
description of the conflagration, 344 ; 
causes of her prosperity, 347 ; causes of 
her fall, 347—349, 407, 40S; her annihila- 
tion necessary to the security of Bome, 
348, 349; trade of, with America, 349 
note; temporal well-being of her inhabit- 
ants, 350; her government much like 
that of Rome, 407, 408 

Carthaginian language, little known to 
the ancients, 349 

Carthaginians, heroism of the, 344, 345 ; 
their delicate feeling with respect to 



INDEX. 



481 



female chastity, 345; unjustly accused 
of avarice, ib. ; signal act of justice 
performed by the, on traitors, 345—347 

Cassius, outlived his cause, 460 

Cato, estimate of, 394; revered, hut not 
loved, 395 

Catullus, GalliamUc of, 204 note ; preferred 
by some to Horace, 456; his style, 457; 
his treatment of Lesbia, ib. ; his meters, 
ib., 458 

Ceiris, Virgil's, 451 

Cepio's law, 410 

Cereate, 378, and note 

Change, of opinions, in reflective minds, 
294 ; every thing lovely subject to, 419 

Character, variety of, in man, 295 

Characteristic, the, not always the defini- 
tion, 123 

Charity, in St. Paul's sense of the term, a 
distinguishing virtue of the Epicureans, 
219 note 

Chastisement, ensures most obedience from 
man, 58 

Chastity, delicate feeling of the Moors 
and Carthaginians with respect to 
female, 345 

Chickens and eggs, superstition concern- 
ing, 417 

Children, of the powerful, not more con- 
tented than others, 41 ; seek their coevals 
for associates, 42; of the contemplative, 
usually dull, 120 ; their inquisitiveness 
as to the truthfulness of a story. 248 ; 
compared with adults, ib. : remarks on 
leaving them behind, at death, 442, 443 ; 
pleasure received from, 443 

Christianity, inconsistent conduct of its 
professors, 282, et seq. ; illustrated by 
the story of Xenophanes and his horse, 
284, 285; its doctrines objected to by 
Lucian, 293, et seq. ; asserted to be 
borrowed from the priests of Isis, 297 

Chrysostom, his statement respecting 
Alexander, 212 note 

Ciceeo (Marcus Tullius) and Quinctus, 
403 

Cicero (Marcus Tullius), his opinion 
respecting Epicurus, 219 ; his use of an 
inaccurate phrase noticed, 391 ; his 
anticipations in a future life, 405, 406, 
416; his first enthusiasm excited by 
Marius, 406; his disapproval of the 
Agrarian law, 410; his prophecy con- 
cerning the Roman religion, 418 ; his ig- 
norance of horticulture, 421, and note; his 
preference latterly for a private life, 425, 
and note; his repugnance to some of the 
positions of Epicurus, 426-428 ; his 
change of opinions, 428, 472, 473 ; his 
axiom respecting the causes of friendship 
erroneous, 428, 429 ; merits of his 
Dialogues considered, 429 — 432 ; his 
style, 430, 442, 458, 477; friendly and 
unfriendly actions of, 436, 437 note ; 
borrowed parts of his language from the 
Allobroges, 442 ; his grief for the loss of 
Tulliola, 444 ; aimed at the useful in his 
Tusculan Disputations, 445 ; his conduct as 
a plead er,470 ; his asperity to the Gracchi, 
472 ; his invectives against Crassus, ib.; 
his changeable opinions of Pompeius. 
473; examination of some passages in 



his writings respecting kingship, 474, 
475; has misrepresented the form of the 
Roman government, 476, 477 ; bis great- 
ness as a writer, 477 ; virtues and defects 
of his character, 478; his death un- 
reasonably commiserated, ib. 

Citrean wood, of the Carthaginians, 
probably mahogany, 349 note ; its pro- 
digious price in the time of Cicero, ib. ; 
inference therefrom, ib. 

City, things to be considered in devising 
the plan of a great, 188 ; remarks on 
the destruction cf a, 189 

Civilisation, effects of a suddenly retro- 
grade, 207 

Claudii, family of the, their tendency to 
insanity, 461 note 

Claudius (Appius), patriotic deed of, 409 

Cleanthes, his doctrine, 467 

Colossus, the, its two several overthrows, 
462 note 

Colours, theory of, first proposed by 
Democritus, 157, and note ; elucidated 
by Newton, 157 note 

Companionship, remark on, 94 

Company, distinction between being 
present at, and forming part of a, 165 

Composition, perspicuity the prime excel- 
lence of, 254, 255; obscurity the greatest 
fault in, 257; quotations in, to be avoided, 
308; may be too ornate, 309 

Conquerors, estimate of, 219 

Conquests, insecurity of large, 70 

Consistency, how only to ensure, 121 

Conspiracies, remarks on, 51, 52 

Contemplation, the faculty of, opinion of 
Pherecydes and Pythagoras concerning, 
97 

Controversial writings, reason and origin 
of, 244 

Controversy, prohibited to Christians, 291 

Conversation, admits of more exuberance 
than oratory, 151, 165, 166; compared 
with reading, 200 ; of the wsest, often 
inconsiderate, ib.; elicits ideas, 220 

Cook, value of a good, 49 

Corinth, reason of her destruction by the 
Romans, 349 ; burnt subsequently to 
Carthage, ib. note; temporal well-being 
of her inhabitants, 350 

Cork, recommended as a substitute for iron 
armour, 59 

Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi), her cha- 
racter, 375, 413; her letter to her son 
Caius, 411 ; her house and garden at 
Misenus described, 421 ; her love of 
horticulture, ib. ; her demeanour after 
the death of her sons, 422, 423 

Country, how most men serve their, 84; 
indifference to the welfare of our, a 
crime, 176 

Country, seclusion of the, favourable to 
right thinking, 220 ; its enjoyments 
promote reconciliations, 260 

Courage, two kinds of, 206; not weakened 
by domestic ties, 207; as pernicious as 
beneficial, 241 ; women most attracted 
by, ib. 

Courts, silliness alone unsuspected in, 47; 
condition of morals in, 104 

Cow, extensive worship of the, 387, 388 

Crassus (Lucius), his celebrated oration, 410 
I I 



482 



INDEX. 



Crassus, the triumvir, his character, 398 ; 

Cicero's invectives against him, 472 
Crates, his doctrine, 467 
Critobulus, his Apologue of Truth, 439 — 

441 
Croesus, character of, 45; had no naval 

force, 52 
Cross, the, its commonness in Judsea, 331 
Cruelty, the greatest of all crimes, 204; 

effects of, ib. 
Culex, Virgil's, 451 

Curiosity, a feminine quality, 7; repre- 
sentation of, as a goddess, 8 
Cybele, priests of, 7 ; statue of, by Phidias, 

64 note ; not adored by the manlier 

Greeks 148 
Cyropcedia, defects in the, 209, 391 
Cyrus the Younger and Xenophon, 131 



Dactylic period, avoided by good prose 
writers, 213; instances of its occurrence, 
213 note, 214 
Danaiis, religious rites introduced by, 116 
Dead men, whipping inflicted on, 57 note 
Death, the approach of, renders us truthful, 
18; preferable to protracted decay, 19; 
not a leveller, 66 ; argument for the 
existence of souls after, examined, 98 ; 
the fear of, to be cast aside, 225 ; why 
a blessing, 226, 227; consequence of 
guarding against, 397 ; the probable 
renovator of mental vigour, 425; has 
two aspects, 434; reflections on life and, 
ib., 435 
Defence of Socrates, remarks on Plato's, 126 
Definitions, Plato's, criticised, 122 — 124 
Delphi, the Oracle at, story of its declara- 
tion respecting Socrates improbable, 128 
Demiurgos, the, 77, 118 
Democritus, his services to philosophy, 
153, 154; doctrines of, often contradict 
the senses, 157 ; first proposed the theory 
of colours, ib., and note ; in what relation 
he stands to Homer, 257 
Demoniac, cure of a, 331 
Demosthenes and Eubulides, 150 
Demosthenes, his hostility and opposition 
to Philip, 150, et seq.; merits and defects 
of his oratory, 150, etseq., 166, 179—183, 
205 ; his habits in composition, 167 
his malice toward ^Eschines, 172, 173 
his character and opinions censured by 
JEschines, 179 ; an instance of his tau- 
tology, ib., and note; where wanting in 
genius, 180; his preparations for fifty- 
six Philippics, 182; his vulgarity and 
violence, 183 ; his opinion in later days 
as to the desirableness of government, 
42^ 7iots 
Be Ojficiis, Cicero's books, 436, 472 
De itepublicd, Cicero's treatise. 474, 475, 

477 
Desert, ingratitude usually in proportion 
to, 436 note ; effects of a consciousness 
of, 442 
Despotism, its nature and effects, 34, et seq. ; 

compared with ochlocracy, 475 
Despots, cruel from the first, 36-; tyranny 
of, sometimes needful, ib. ; course they 
invariably pursue, 38 ; buffoons and 



singers their most intimate associates, 
39 ; only roused from their torpor by the 
cry for their blood, ib. ; isolated from 
their species, ib. ; deserted in death, 42 ; 
wars needful to their stability, 46 ; 
dealers in equality, 70; misery inflicted 
by, 85; ought to be destroyed, 113, 177, 
178 ; are persuaded to believe that terror 
is better than esteem, 170; enrich those 
who pamper their foibles, 171 

Destiny, madness of contending against, 
133 

Destruction and renovation, remark on, 460 

Devil, the, how the happiest of beings, 332 

Dialogue, the, should possess variety, 119; 
rendered unnatural by being employed 
for school-exercises, 120; as a mode of 
communicating knowledge considered, 
429; great masters of, ib.; distinctions 
to be observed in conducting a, 431 

Dialogues, Plato's, 119, 120; Lucian's, of the 
Dead, 280, 299; Cicero's, 429—432 

Diana, custom in her temple near the Lake 
of Nemi, 283, 284 

Dictator, the Roman, falsely thought to 
have possessed absolute power, 476 

Dinner, reasons for taking it alone, 252 ; 
much company at, a barbarous practice, 
394 

Diogenes and Plato, 73 

Diogenes, his strictures on Plato's charac- 
ter and writings, 73, etseq.; derides Plato's 
dress, 83 ; his reputation for hard- 
heartedness considered, 84—86 ; his con- 
tempt of death, 86; his conduct with 
regard to religion, 104; contrasts himself 
with Socrates, 129; sketch of his life, 
130 ; refutal of the story of his counter- 
feiting money, ib. ; not visited by 
Alexander out of idle curiosity, ib. ; not 
likely ever to have seen Socrates, ib. ; 
ridiculed Plato's coinage of new words, 
ib. ; Plato's saying concerning him ex- 
plained, ib.; his alleged immoralities 
disproved, ib., 131 ; opinion entertained 
of him by Xeniades, 131 ; buried with 
public honours, ib. ; his character little 
understood, 310; reasons why he was 
hated, ib. ; the wisest man of his time, ib. 

Diogenes Laertius, his biography of the 
Cynic, 130 

Dionysius, remarks on Plato's intercourse 
with, 111—113 

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, iambic lines 
in his history, 214 note 

Disciples of Christ, their unbelief, 330 

Distinctions, importance of, in the use of 
words, 296 

Divinity, the, wherein his pleasure con- 
sists, 443 

Dog. the, fond of acquiring information, 
123 

Dogs, argument for their howls being 
ominous, 142, 143; grounds for their 
chance of a future life, 314 

Dream, the, of Xerxes, 61, 64 

Dreams, remarks on, 134; morning, 164 

Druids, did not construct the altars called 
after them, 156; their religion contrasted 
with that of the Greeks, 157 

Drunkenness, axiom concerning, 88 

Dying, time of, in our own choice, 183 



INDEX. 



483 



Education, of kings, 46, 114, 375, 475 
Eggs and chickens, superstition concern- 
ing, 417 

Egypt, shepherds of, see Pelasgians; priests 
and gods of, in Greece, 146, and Rome, 
388, 416, 453; her power during the 
martial reign of Sesostris, 147 ; decline 
of, due to priestly predominance, ib.; 
mutilation of her monuments, ib. 

Elapheholion, month of, 239, and note 

Elephants, observations on their employ- 
ment in war, 351, 352 ; Hannibal's 
misuse of, ib. ; different effects produced 
by, in three different engagements, lb. ; 
measures of Africanus for encountering, 
352 

Eloquence, of Pericles, 65, 153, 257, 308 ; its 
essentials, 101 ; of Plato, 101—103, 305, 
306 ; of Demosthenes, 150, et seq., 166, 
179—183, 205, 308; remarks on, 158, et 
seq.] flourishes under free governments, 
160 ; of Phocion, 173, 200, 205 ; of Cicero, 
442, 445, 469 

Elysium, belief in the locality of, by the 
ancients, 298 

Endurance, remarks on, 202 

Enemy, the worst, his limited power to 
oppress the good, 183 

Enmities, how excited, 426 

Envy, compared with malice, 124, 125 

Epaminondas, estimate of, 109, 110 ; enthu- 
siasm excited by his death, 110 ; 
compared with Alexander, 205; inferior 
to Hannibal, 373 ; his greatness, 375 

Epeiis, 54, and note 

Epic, the, not the highest kind of poetry, 
250 

Eptctetus and Seneca, 466 

Epictetus, character of, 295 ; wisdom con- 
tained in his Manual, 312 ; his style, 
468, 469 

Epicureans, their pursuits, 425, 427, 428 

Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa, 219 

Epicurus, opinions of Cicero and Seneca 
concerning, 219 note; his garden, 219, et 
seq.^ his philosophic vieAv of death, 226, 
227 ; his friendship with Metrodorus, 
229 note ; his love-potions, 239 ; opposi- 
tion of Theophrastus to his doctrines, 
244, 247, 249; his character, 295; more 
sublime than Plato, 299 ; his life and 
doctrines, 300, 311 ; not an atheist, 332; 
his opinion respecting superhuman 
beings, ib.; Cicero's repugnance to some 
of his positions, 426, 427 ; heads of his 
philosophy, 426; enthusiasm he excited, 
427 ; hated by no one who knew him, ib. 

Equals, sought after as associates, 42 

Error, should be removed as soon as de- 
tected, 280 

Erudition, men of, liable to two evils, 236 

Essenes, austere practices of the, 333, 334 ; 
the aged all, 333 

Eternal punishment, the doctrine con- 
sidered, 293 

Etrurians, women common among the, 
206; performed no illustrious actions, ib. 

EUBULIDES AN!) DEMOSTHENES, 150 

Eubulides, notice of, 150 note 
Euclid, his merit as a philosopher, 385 
Euripides, patronised by Archelaus, 112 ; 
reason for his dislike of the Athenians, ib. 



Evagoras of Cyprus, his statue, 232 
Events, power of predicting, attributed to 

brutes, 142 ; our feelings at a succession 

of terrible, 350 
Experience, remark on the wisdom of, 42, 

43 ; the only teacher both in war and 

peace, 177 
Experimentalists, the worst politicians, 75 



Fables related by JEsop to Rhodope, 13, 14 

False, difference between the, and the 
untrue, 296 

Falsehood, its uses in the world, 262 ; 
observations on, 292 

Fame, its nature, 432 ; unequal distribution 
of, 435 

Familiarities, to be avoided, 436 

Fiction, man a lover of, 248 

Fidelity, ensured by interest, 49 ; evil ot 
drawing a line between truth and, 203 

Flattery, remark on, 33; habitual, softens 
a language, 160 

Folly, childish simplicity not always a 
proof of, 3 ; of men, agiveable to girls, 21 ; 
remark on the treatment of, 104 

Fools, who are the worst, 38 

Forgery, how far a crime, 130 

Fortunate, wickedness of running down 
the, 37 

Fortune, temple dedicated to, by Servius 
Tullius, 424 ; her conduct with regard to 
the rich, 471 

Fortune, mistaken by most men for genius, 
435 

Freedom, a nation's loss of, preceded by a 
loss of idiom, 159; how far possessed by 
various peoples, 476 

Freewill, an effluence of necessity, 92 

Friendship, occasions when it is desider- 
ated, 203 ;' cannot be replaced, 231 ; of 
girl for girl, ib. ; a middle state between 
love and, 246 ; Cicero's definition of its 
essence erroneous, 428, 429 ; its impor- 
tance, 435 ; virtue presupposed in, ib. 



G-alliarnbic of Catullus, probably a relic of 

Phrygian poetry, 204 note 
Garden, the, of Epicurus described, 219, et 

seq. ; a, not a place for public statues, 232 
G asteres, the, a fraternity of priests, history 

of, 316-321 
Gauls, the, instructed by Pythagoras, 155, 

156; their character, 339, 354, 386 
General, how to estimate the abilities of a, 

374, 375 
Geometry, advice with regard to, 260 
Georgics. criticism on Virgil's, 451 — 453 
Glory, of the ancient Greeks, 55, 376 ; not 

to be detacht from the acquirer, 55 ; 

admiration of false, inculcated upon 

youth, 329, 330 ; the pursuit of, rational, 

401 ; of ambition, unsatisfactory, ib. ; 

action of its lustre, 422 ; a mover of great 

intellects, 435 ; by whom it may be safely 

despised, ib.\ briefness of worldly, 448, 

449 
God, Plato's idea of, considered, 118, 119; 

philosophy points to one onlv, 425 
ii 2 



484 



INDEX. 



Gods, remarks on sacrifices to the, 40, 55, 
56, 138; a multitude of, needless, 56; 
poetical description of their abode, 
63; reasonableness of a plurality of, 
discussed, 135 — 137 ; introduction of 
Egyptian, into Greece, 146, and Home. 
388, 453; Homer's representation of the, 
217 ; Lucian's, 291 ; character of the 
Roman, formed that of the nation, 388 
Gorgias of Plato, the, 214 note 
Government, legitimate, founded on 
humanity, 88; remarks on a monocratical, 
113, 115, 474, 475 ; three estates requisite 
in a, 137 ; Plato's scheme of, compared 
with that of Aristoteles, 215 — 217; a 
work on, should treat of the practicable, 
216; contrariety of interests in a, 
ruinous, 407; that of Carthage much 
like that of Rome, ib., 408; the, of he- 
reditary kings a barbarous institution, 
414 ; opinion of Demosthenes as to the 
desirableness of, 425 note ; the best and 
worst forms of, 475; Epicurean doctrine 
of, 476 ; a republican form of, best adapted 
to the Romans, ib.; that of republican 
Rome erroneously represented as aristo- 
cratical, ib., 477 
Governments, which are the most flourish- 
ing, 96 ; free, produce true eloquence, 
160; concomitants of despotical, 350; 
should accommodate themselves to the 
times, 413; conduct of decrepit, 433; how 
they should be constituted, 476 
Gracchi, opinions as to their character and 
projects, 409, 410, 473, 474; their sup- 
porters and opponents, ib. 
Gracchus (Caius), his Agrarian law, 410; 
his inflexible rectitude, ib.; his letter to 
his mother, 411—413 
Gracchus (Tiberius), his Agrarian law, 409 
Great, the, why defamed, 74; how to be 

thought, 435 
Great man, definition of a, 74 ; the, distin- 
guished from the powerful one, 79 
Great men, discussion concerning, 77, 78 ; 
faults of, 110; will seek each other, 154 ; 
how affected by nearness to us, 179 ; their 
writings preferable to their conversation, 
200 ; durability of God's, 202 ; inadequate 
estimate of, while living, 401, 402; 
influence of their memory, 415; in litera- 
ture, suffer most from their little friends, 
436 
Greatness, not fully perceived till after 
death, 65; is unsociable, 154; origin of 
most men's, 408 ; of states, upon what it 
depends, ib. ; all a great writer's, difficult 
to be comprehended at once, 477 
Greece, preparations by Xerxes for the in- 
vasion of, 55, et seq.; spread of Egyptian 
superstitions in, 146 ; benefits conveyed 
by, to the Romans, 355, 377, and to the 
human race in general, 376, 431 
Greeks, glory of the ancient, 55, 376; a 
barbarian's view of their character, 56; 
their religious system discussed, 136, 
et seq.; expert in auguries, 139; their 
religion contrasted with that of the 
Druids, 157; instructors of the Romans 
in the arts of peace and war, 355, 377 ; 
their levity, 430 ; their style and versi- 
fication, 452 



Grief, uses of seasonable, 443, 444; immo- 
derate, condemned, 444 
Grievances, remarks on the redress of, 95 



Hammon (Priest of) and Alexander, 184 

Handwriting, bad, affectation in, 181; 
anecdote respecting, ib. 

Hannibal and Marcellus, 337 

Hannibal, not supported by his country, 
350; his misemployment of elephants, 
351, 352 ; his inaction after the battle of 
Cannae censured, 351 ; probable reasons 
for his conduct, 353, 354; would have 
failed in taking Rome, ib. ; little skilled 
in sieges, ib.; his exploits unparalleled, 
354; superior to Alexander, ib., 355; 
the story of his army wasting away in 
luxury at Capua absurd, 371, 372; un- 
rivalled in the union of political and 
military science, 373, 374 ; great both in 
prosperity and adversity, 374 

Happiness, how affected by giving or de- 
priving, 40, 41 ; not increased by an 
increase of power, 41 ; the most natural 
and universal of our desires, 255; things 
adverse to, ib., 256 ; eternal, how to be 
attained, 416; remarks on men's per- 
ception and pursuit of, 424 

Hatred, of those worse than ourselves, 
accounted for, 204 ; best way of putting 
an end to, 222; of woman for woman, 
231 ; natural to man, 427 ; wherein it 
resembles hunger, ib.; what it proves, 
428 

Heart, hardness of, wherein it consists, 85 

Helena and Achilles, 1 

Hellenisms, introduction of, into the Latin 
tongue, 458 

Hereditary kings, motive for their mutual 
invasions, 46 ; their education and in- 
tellects, ib. ; evils associated with, 155 ; 
a government of, a barbarous institution, 
414 

Heresy, an absurd accusation, 293 

Herodotus, his style, 102, 152, 225, 308; 
reminds one of Homer, 225 ; Asiatic cha- 
racter of his history, ib. 

Historians, culpability of, in inciting youth 
to the admiration of false glory, 329,330; 
motive for their oppression by despots, 
419 

History, who should be brought before its 
tribunal, 109 ; every great writer a writer 
of, ib. ; should not be altogether true, 209, 
210; prostitution of, to trifling details, 
263; proper subjects for, ib.; compared 
with biography, 422 

Homer, his style, 102; his treatment of 
Eastern mythology, 119 ; his representa- 
tion of the gods, 217 ; obligations of 
literature to, 433 

Horatius Flaccus, parsimonious of praise, 
456; his excellence in Satire, ib. ; his 
Odes, ib.; jealous of Catullus and Calvus, 
ib. ; unrivalled for variety, 457; his 
fabulous mistresses, ib.; his undexterous 
allusions to the pedigree of Mecsenas. 459 

Hospitality, never violated by the brave, 5 

Hosts, Lord of, the expression impugned, 
283 



INDEX. 



485 



Humanity, legitimate government founded 
on, 88 ; must be set aside for truth, 100 



Iambic lines in Dionysius of Halicarnas- 
sus, 214 note 

Ideas, remarks on our appropriation of 
another's, 118 

Idiom, loss of, by a nation, precursory to 
that of freedom, 159 ; every good writer 
abounds in, ib. 

Idleness, how to render it sacred, 272 

Iliad, the, query as to part being a trans- 
lation, 203 ; a fragment of a lust world, 
432 

Illusion, the, aimed at in the arts, neither 
can nor ought to be complete, 253 

Images of deity, their reasonableness con- 
sidered, 286; breakers of, punished by 
Trajan, 287 

Imagination, Plato's, wholly unlike Shak- 
speare's, 116 note ; effect of a heated, in 
a writer, 117 

Immortality, the, of the soul, criticism on 
Plato's argument for, 97, 98 ; opinions of 
Cicero concerning, 405, 406, 416 

Impudence, the quality of great speakers 
and disputants, 200 

Incantation, Plato' slaw for the punishment 
of, 89 

Inconsistency, when not chargeable, 477 

Indifference, to the welfare of our country, 
a crime, 176; to the world, not philoso- 
phy, 334 

Ingratitude, source of the sufferings we 
experience at, 251 ; a remedy for its 
venom, 374; usually in proportion to 
desert, 436 note 

Insanity, prevalence of, in royal families, 
70; tendency of the Claudii to, 461 note 

Instinct, the courage of, 206, 207 

Intellects, mighty, carped at by little, 166 

Interest, insures fidelity, 49 

Invention, the primary part of poets, 43 ; 
how exhibited, 82, 216; repetition shows 
no want of, 181 - 

Ionians, their policy with respect to reli- 
gion, 156 

Isis, priests of, their wealth and pride, 297, 
323; pretended that Christianity was 
borrowed from them, 297 

Italians, retain no traces of ancient institu- 
tions, except in religion, 476 

Italy, princes of, reformed by Pythagoras, 
111 ; cities of Southern, their condition 
under his system of government, 154; 
natural disadvantages of, 349 ; character 
of her inhabitants, ib. 



Janus, the Middle, 429, and note 
Jealousy, of the Thebans and Athenians, 

232 ; latent in all men, 298 
Jews, tythes amongst the, 417; their 
government theocratical, ib. ; their cha- 
racter and actions, ib. 
Juno, mythological signification of, 78 
Jupiter, mythological signification of, 78 
Justice, included in temperance, 242 



Kastor and Polydeukes, description of, 6 
Kindness, axiom concerning, 251 
Kingdoms, who most commended in, 171 
Kings, more pernicious than tyrants, 36; 
lose an enemy in every free nation 
destroyed, 52 ; always in perplexity, 61, 
62 ; the worst, usually the most punctual 
worshipers, 104; the eligibility of a 
government by, considered, 113, 114, 474 
— 476; defects and tendencies of their 
education, 114, 475; their in lination to 
disobey the laws, ib. ; their fall terrible, 
133 ; never grateful, 139 ; advantage they 
possess in a war with republics, 177 ; not 
accustomed to interrogation, 192 ; when 
not deserving of scorn, 373 ; foundation of 
their power, ib. ; their education to be con- 
sidered in judging of their actions, 375; 
fosterers of each other's tyranny, 475 
Knowledge, parts of, which were rare 
among the ancients, 75, and note; dis- 
tinction between wisdom and, 212; effect 
of the variance of will and, 424 



Lacedemonians, their character, 242 

Lselius, thought that Hannibal could have 
taken Rome, 353 ; cause of his ceasing 
to support Tiberius Gracchus, 473 

Language, part of a man's character, 150; 
softening effect of flattery on a, 160; 
nations that had a learned, 204 ; the 
Carthaginian, little known to the 
ancients, 349 ; the Roman, its progress 
and decline, 458 

Laws, The, of Plato, criticism of axioms in, 
88, et seq. 

Laws, baneful effect of many, 90; kings 
inclined to disobey the, 114, 475 ; men 
should not be accustomed to changes in, 
175 ; rarity of new, amongst the Locrians, 
178 

Learning, its display in the praises of the 
dead censured, 108; inferior to philo- 
sophy, 258; pride and dogmatism of its 
possessors, ib., 259 ; loss of ante-Homeric, 
432 

Leontion, Epicurus, and Teenissa, 219 

Leontion, her work against Theophrastus, 
243, et seq. 

Liberties, remarks on depriving a people 
of their, 33, et seq. 

Lies, communicativeness of, 128 

Life, human, has its equinoxes, 399 ; 
Cicero's idea of a future, 416; should be 
resigned willingly, 434 ; a long, not desi- 
rable, ib. ; hardly can be called ours, ib. ; 
few can regulate, ib. ; use of, 435 

Linus, Hymn of, 315 — 317 

Literature, decline of Greek, 262, 263 

Livy, scraps of verse in his sentences, 214 
note; often inharmonious in his con- 
structions, 308 

Locrians, rarity of new laws amongst the, 
178 ; their treatment of the proposer of a 
rejected one, ib. 

Logic, unpopularity of, 100 ; how to be 
handled by a good writer, ib. 

Love, an ungrateful guest, 17 ; foolish at 
disproportionate ages, 21 ; desirableness 
of, in all its forms, 48 ; the first and the 



486 



INDEX. 



last, 246 ; a middle state between friend- 
ship and, ib. ; inseparable from hope and 
fear, 361 , 362 ; its mysteries must not be 
unveiled, 456 
Love-potions, Kpicurus's, 239 

LUCIAN AND TlMOTHEUS, 280 

Lucian, his Dialogues of thn Dead, remarks 
on, 280, 299; his animadversions on the 
doctrines and professors of Christianity, 
282, et seq. ; his wit, 303 

Lucretius, his archaisms, 458 ; his work on 
Nature, ib. 

LUCULLUS AND CAESAR, 383 

Lucullus, his repudiation of power, 383 ; 
description of his Apennine villa, 385, 
et seq. ; his humanity, 386 ; his library, 
389 ; his dining-room and luxurious con- 
trivances, 392, et seq. ; probably poisoned, 
397; his magnanimity, 398; rebukes 
Caesar's ambition, 400—403 

Luxury, a bugbear with philosophers, 355; 
anecdote to the contrary, 356 — 369; 
remarks on, in reference to soldiers, 371; 
story of its effects on Hannibal's army 
incredible. 372 

Lycabettos, crag of, 176, and vote 

Lygdamus, King of Naxos, an ally of 
Polycrates, 47 



Macedonians, their conviviality and mar- 
tial exercises, 148; instructed by the 
Greeks, 355 
Mages, the, practised mesmerism, 62 ; their 

wisdom, ib. 
Malice, definition of, 124; compared with 

revenge and envy, ib., 125 
Man, miseries of the fortunate and power- 
ful, 39; Plato's definition of, criticised, 
122 — 124 ; m what qualities distinguished 
from other animals, 124; inimical to 
truth, 248; his views as to his projects, 
406 ; definition of the happy, 427 
Manners, mutability of, 93 
Marcellus and Hannibal, 337 
Marcellus, his death described, 337 — 342 
Margites, the, 123, 126 
Marian faction, intended suppression of 

the Senate of Rome by the, 407 
Marius and Metellus, 377 
Marius, notice of, 382 ; his character, 406 
Marriage, Plato's institute respecting, 90, 
206, 207; remarks on that of Socrates, 
120, 121 ; an illusion conducing to, 121 
Marriages, mercenary, of the great, 30, 31 
Massilia, the residence of Pythagoras, 156 
Master, who is alone the, of men, 40 
Mecsenas (Cilnius), protector of the young 
Octavius, 459; his wealth not derived 
from proscriptions, ib.; his affecta'ion of 
family, ib. ; his character and beneficial 
influence, ib. 
Men, affect their equals in condition, 42 ; 
will rather be subjugated than deceived, 
48; to whom most obedient, 58; com- 
parative weakness cf all, 77 
Menexenus, Plato's Dialogue of, 107 
Mesmerism, practised by the Mages, 62 
Messala and Tibullus, 446 
Messala, benefactor to Tibullus, 447 
Metaphors, their sparing use, a merit, 260 



Metaphysics, unpopularity of, 100 ; how to 
be handled by a good Avriter, ib. ; out of 
place in oratory, 159 

Metellus and Marius, 377 

Metellus (Cains Cheilitis), notice of, 382 

Metrodorus, his friendship with Epicurus, 
229 note 

Mimnermus, his use of the pentameter, 457 

Miracles, conduct of men with respect to, 
49 ; the chief support of Christianity, 
323; discourse concerning, 331, 335, et 
seq. ; existed in all ages and religions, 
335 ; a belief in, how sometimes promul- 
gated, ib. 

Mischief, to do much, does not require much 
wisdom, 170 ; men must do a great, to be 
thought great, 435 

Misfortunes, by whom best averted, 42 

Mithra, worshipt by the Persians, 56 

Moderate, the, not usually the most sin- 
cere, 87 

Modesty, difference of, in man and woman, 
20; unfits men for public affairs, 81, and 
brothels, ib.; the quality of great readers 
and composers, 200 

Moors, their delicate feeling with respect 
to female chastity, 345; skilful in agri- 
culture, 347 

Morning hours, best adapted to study, 22 

Motives to action, remark on, 424 

Mud, myth of the, 14 

Musseus, his poems lost before the time of 
Plato, 119 

Mystery, advantage of sometimes affecting, 
99 

Mythology, Homer's treatment of Eastern, 
119; parts of, doubted by some of the 
ancients, 143 



Names, great, ought not to run away with 
us, 254; modern abbreviations of ancient 
proper, 455 note 

Napoleon, his invasion of Russia con- 
trasted with that of Greece by Xerxes, 
64; his greater imprudence, ib. 

Nation, different effect of corrupting a 
civilised and an uncivilised, 177; a 
decayed, acts as a manure, 460; remarks 
on the fall of a weak and powerful, ib. 

Necessity, strict meaning of the term, 92 ; 
free-will an effluence of, ib. 

Neithes, the Egyptian Athene, Athens 
built by, 117 

Nemi, lake of, custom in the temple of 
Diana on its borders, 283, and note 

Newton, Democritus's theory of colours 
elucidated by, 157 note 

Nicholas, the Tzar, dead men whipt under, 
57 note 

Numantia, description of its condition at 
the close of the siege, 378— 380; account 
of the self-sacrifice of its inhabitants, 
380, 381 

Numbers, Plato's opinions on, 96 

Numidians, their character, 339 

Nursery, the universe a, 26 



Obscurity, the greatest fault in composi- 
tion, 257 



INDEX. 



487 



Ochlocracy, its characteristics, 475 ; more 
tolerable than despotism, ib. 

Octavius, his obligations to Mecamas, 459 

Ode, its antiquity and universality in 
Attica, 119, 120 ; not successfully culti- 
vated til the time of Sophocles, 119 

Officer, wherein his pride should consist, 59 

Opimius, his cruelties to the partisans of 
Gracchus, 474 

Opinions, change of, in reflective minds, 
294; approximation of sensible men's, 
in the course of life, 426 ; littleness of 
standing aloof from those who hold 
different, 428: the adoption of wiser, not 
inconsistency, 477 

Oracles, by whmi consulted, 128; dis- 
course concerning their use, 134, 135, 
140 

Orations, Cicero's, 429, 472 

Orators, characteristics of those of the 
Schools, 160; should be habitually 
somewhat austere, 166 ; nature of their 
ambition in a republic, 171 

Oratory, a display of learning in, censured, 
108; admits of less exuberance than 
conversation, 151, 165, 166 

Orithyeia, allusion to the story of, 224 

Orpheus, no traces of his poems in the 
time of Plato, 119 

Ovidius Naso, his genius, 455; style of 
his Epistles, ib.; his amatory pieces 
objectionable, 456; his generous dis- 
position, ib. ; affectation in his manage- 
ment of the pentameter, 457, 458 



Painters and statuaries, their peculiar 

power, 64 
Pan^tius, Scipio, and Poltbius, 342 
Partialities, our conduct in the confession 

of our, 261 
Passions, of men, their beneficial agency, 

295, 296 ; belief in their existence after 

death, 298 ; regulated by seasonable joy 

and sorrow, 443 
Patience, immoderate trials of our, to be 

avoided, 121 
Patriot, trie true, a kind father, 206 
Peace, reflections on a season of, 147 ; not 

the greatest of blessings to a nation, ib. 
Pedagogues, their inculcation of martial 

glory on the minds of youth condemned, 

329, 330 
Pelasgians, emigration of, under Danaiis, 

probably that of 'the "shepherds" of 

Egypt, 116 
Peleus and Thetis, the scene of, recited in 

the garden of Epicurus, 267 — 271 
Pentameter, nature of the, 457; Ovid's 

management of the, »"&., 458 
People, great bodies of, easy of manage- 
ment, 49 
Peeicles and Sophocles, 64 
Pericles, flourishing condition of Athens 

under, 64, et seq.\ con met of, with regard 

to Cimon, 66 note ; his character, ib.-, his 

style of eloquence, 153, 257, 308; his 

greatness, 375 
Perictione, miraculous conception of, 331 
Persians, their regard for truth, 69 ; Plato's 

account of their march round the terri- 



tory of Eretria, 107 ; character of the, 
132; their religion compared with that 
of the Greeks, 136, et sea. 

Perspicuity, the prime excellence of com- 
position, 254 

Pherecydes, his opinion on the faculty of 
contemplation, 97 ; his residence at 
Sparta, 112; his services to philosophy, 
154 

Phidias, his statue of Cybele, 64 note 

Philip, of Macedon, character and capaci- 
ties of, 148, 152, 190 ; effect of the news 
of his death at Athens, 167, 170 ; remarks 
suggested by his death, 168—172; his 
vices, 177 ; his bribery of the Athenians, 
178; his zeal for religion, 184; inferior 
to Hannibal, 373 

Philippic, dactylic period in the first, 214 

Philopcemen, 350 ; not to be compared with 
Hannibal, 373; his greatness 375 

Philosophers, unthrifty in their distinc- 
tions, 76; their lives and language 
should be simple, 90 ; remarks on their 
attendance upon kings and princes, 93, 
94; vigilance should be exercised 
against, 118; what is required at their 
hands, 201 ; their lives and achievements 
compared with those of a conqueror, 202 ; 
few exempt from spleen, 254 ; pursuits of 
small, 263; their business the search 
after truth, 292 ; should speak intelligi- 
bly, 304; causes of their errors, 385; 
most of them unfaithful to science, ib.; 
motive for their oppression by despots, 
419 ; must bear bravely, 466 

Philosophy, definition of, 93 ; cannot 
consist with absurdity, 97; powerless 
against the passions, 158; pursuit of, 
physically beneficial, 201 ; system first 
given to, by Aristo teles, 257 ; schools of, 
for what to be frequented, 262 ; conduces 
to truth, 328; designed for the benefit 
of the wh<le world, 334; not fit for the 
people, 388; points to one God, 425; 
sh uld eschew violence, 426 

Phocaeans, their policy with respect to 
religion, 156 

Phocion and JEschines, 172 

Phocion, his unpopularity, 173 ; glory 
attending the elecions of, 174 ; character 
of his eloquence, ib , 200 ; estimate of> as 
a man, a captain, and an orator, 205, 206 ; 
his style, the model of Aristoteles, 205 

Phraseology, simplicity of, recommended 
in composition, 101, 102 

Pigs, uncleanly from love of cleanliness, 
314 

Pinasters, rarely embraced by twining 
plants, 221 

Pindar, his dithyrambics, 90, 213 ; statue 
erected to him by the Athenians, 232 

Piraeus, at Athens, 64, and note 

PlSISTRATUS AND SOLON, 33 

Pisistratus, his character and actions, 33, 
et seq. 

Pity, on whom bestowed by man and by 
woman, 30 

Plato and Diogenes, 73 

Plato, his envy of Aribto teles, 80; his mode 
of dress ridiculed by Diogenes, 83 ; absent 
at the death of Socrates, 84; his mis 
representations of the genius and philo- 



488 



INDEX. 



sophy of Socrates, 87, et seq.; his -writings 
arid opinions criticised, 88, et seq.; his 
system of punishments discussed, 88—92; 
character and propensities of his scholars, 
93, 199, 304; his plagiarism of ideas, 96, 
97, 117, 118; criticism on his argument 
for the immortality of the soul, 97 — 99; 
his style, 100, et seq., 152, 214 not?, 
215, 301, 305, et seq., 430; his eloquence 
considered, 101—103, 305, 306 ; his whim 
sical ideas of beauty, 105, 106 ; his 
failure as a historian, 107—111, 300, 305 ; 
remarks on his residence with Dionysius, 
111 — 113; his political opinions, 113 — 115, 
475; his notion of the Androgyne, 116, 
and note, 300; his imagination wholly 
unlike Shakspeare's, 116 note ; his anti- 
quarian and other absurdities, 117, 300, 
301 ; his conception of the Deity, 118, 
119; defects of his Dialogues, 119, 120; 
his inexact definitions, 122 — 124; poverty 
of his wit, 125, 302, 303, 305 ; his Defence 
of Socrates, 126; estimate of his merits 
and dements by Demosthenes, 152, 153; 
irony in his Dialogues, 153; makes 
Socrates appear a Sophist, ib. ; his 
jealousy, 158 ; strictures on his system 
respecting women and property, 206— 
208; fate of his poetry, 215; the only 
florid writer possessing animation, ib. ; 
his scheme of government compared 
with that of Aristoteles, 215 — 217 ; his 
blameahle conduct toward other philo- 
sophers, 217 ; passages in his writings 
indefensible, 299 ; his genius considered, 
300, et seq-. ; criticism on his Banquet, 300, 
301 ; compared with Aristophanes, 303 ; 
his imagination, as displayed in his 
Polity, 304 ; conduct of his followers, ib. ; 
his grandiloquence, 305, 306, 311, 312; 
fails to win the affections, 306 ; extolled 
too highly by his disciples, ib. ; his 
allegories, ib., 307 ; his character little 
understood, 310 ; wanted heart, 311 ; 
compared with Epictetus, 312 ; his 
writings unpractical, ib., 430 ; by whom 
admired, 430 ; of small authority in 
philosophy and politics, ib. 

Platonic School, fondness of the, for subtle 
speculations, 93 ; for talking and dis- 
puting, 199 

Plautus, his phraseology, 458 

Pleasure, produces callousness, 121 ; true, 
incompatible with impurity, 333 ; bene- 
ficial effects of moderate, 443 

Plutarch, his character, 327 ; his friendship 
with Trajan, 328 

Pcecile, at Athens, 64, and note 

Poet, requisites of the, 303; business of 
the, 306 ; why great and powerful, 449 

Poetry, the difficulty of marking its degrees, 
53; the finest, contains the finest philo- 
sophy, 90; remark on the beautiful in, 
116 note; its mysteries, 180; delight its 
object, 250; the highest kind of, tragic, 
ib. ; tragic, compared with epic, ib. ; alle- 
gory not a basis for the highest, 306 ; its 
truthfulness, 385 

Poets, invention the primary part of, 43; 
not all dishonest. 47; their mental con- 
stitution, 112; their vocation allied to 
sycophancy, ib.-, remarks on the exclu- 



sion of, from Plato's commonwealth, 213, 
217 
Polemics, character of, 248, 249 
Policy, wisdom of a liberal, even in war, 349 
Politeness, a virtue, 241, 242 
Politician, fatal delusion of the, 256 
Politicians, prone to duplicity, 295 
Politics, considered as a subject of con- 
versation, 163; evoke the worst passions 
between friends, ib. ; danger of novelties 
in, 177 
Polity, a position in Plato's, disputed, 113 ; 
Plato's, written before that of Aristoteles, 
215 note; of Aristoteles compared with 
Plato's, 215, and note, et seq. ; Plato most 
imaginative in his, 304 
Pollio, Virgil's, 451 
Polybius, Scipio, and Panotitis, 342 
Polvbius, style and character of his history, 
369, 370 

POLYCRATES AND ANACREON, 43 

Poly crates, story of his ring, 44 ; friendly 
advice given to him by Anacreon, ib., 
et seq. ; his meditated invasion of Lydia, 
45; his subjugation of Samos, 46; his 
treatment of his brothers, ib. 

Polydeukes and Kastor, description of, 6 

Polytheism, discussed by Xenophon and 
Cyrus, 135—137 

Pomneius (Cneius). his conduct censured 
by* Caesar, 383,_398, 399 ; his character, 
404, 406, 436, 478; Cicero's opinion re- 
specting, 473 

Pomponius (Titus), his character, 423 ; his 
friendship with Cicero, 428 

Pontif, object of the early Christians in 
electing a supreme, 288 

Poor, political conduct of the, 216 

Possessions, usual effect of great, 323 

Poverty, when not disgraceful, 30 ; exces- 
sive, follows in the train of excessive 
wealth, 215 

Power, curse that befalls the possessors of 
despotical, 38, 39; an increase of, not an 
increase of happiness, 41 ; those stript 
of, the most implacable enemies of their 
country, 57 ; exertion of superior, its 
operation, 58; weakening effects of im- 
moderate, 70; only relative, 77; curses 
of kingly, 113 — 115 ; affects even the 
wise, 152; a liberal education necessary 
to control, 406, 407 ; those possessed ot 
arbitrary, incited to oppress philosophers 
and historians, 419 

Praise, iniquity of great writers in with- 
holding, where due, 110; advice on the 
bestowal of, 180 ; often awarded out of 
enmity to others, 255 

Praises of the dead, what to be aimed at 
aud avoided in, 108 

Priest, the High, at Jerusalem, Peter's 
treatment of his servant censured, 287, 288 

Priestess, of Apollo, her declaration con- 
cerning Socrates, 128; of Minerva, her 
perquisites, 418 

Priests, of Cybele, 7 ; remark on the choice 
of, 145; assumption of divine authority 
by, ib.; their cruelties and commina- 
tions, 146; influx of Egyptian, into 
Greece, ib. ; pernicious effects of their 
wealth and undue influence in a state, 
147, 288 ; of Diana, 283, 284 ; of Isis, 297, 



INDEX. 



489 



298; Syrian and Egyptian, in Rome, 416, I 
417 

Priesthoods, quarrels of, under Trajan, 
287 ; subjection of some eastern nations 
to their, 418 

Princes, had better be fortunate than wise, 
44 ; reason why they are never envied, 
ib. ; enrich those who pamper their foi- 
bles, 171 

Professions, barbarian mode of distinguish- 
ing, 68 

Projects, observations on man's, 406 

Propertius, character of his elegies, 455 ; 
deprived of his farm under Perusia, ib.; 
his name unabbreviated by the moderns, 
ib. note ; ridiculed by Horace, 456 

Property, observations on Plato's scheme 
respecting, 207, 208; the desire of, na- 
tural to m an, 207 

Propylea, of Pericles, 64 note 

Prose, faulty if not intelligible, 179; pieces 
of verse occurring in, 213, and note, 214; 
no writer of florid, a good poet, 215 ; has 
its probabilities as well as poetry, 
313 

Prosperity, not promotive of piety, 188 

Puanepsion, month of, 234, and note 

Punishment, of poisoning and incantation, 
89; of robbery and sacrilege, 91; effect 
of public, ib. ; doctrine of eternal, con- 
sidered, 293 ; should come from the ma- 
gistrate, 294 

Punishments, Plato's system of, considered, 
89, 91 ; tendency and effects of, 89, 90 ; 
inequality of, 91; should be adminis- 
tered secretly, 92 

Pythagoras, his opinion on the faculty of 
contemplation, 97 ; character of, 111 ; a 
purifier of courts, ib. ; effect of his teach- 
ings in Italy, 111, 154; his investigations 
of Nature, 127; a true lover of wisdom, 
154; adapted, his institutions to the 
people, ib.; his method of instructing 
the Gauls, 155, 156; his residence at 
Massilia, 156; did not enforce his doc- 
trines beyond his school, 157; justly 
revered as a father, 207 ; posthumous 
observance of his dictates, 282 



Query as to the originality of the Iliad, 

203, 204 
Quotations, a blemish in composition, 

£08; writers in whose works none are 

found, ib. 



Reading, compared with conversation, 
200, and with dramatic spectacle, 253 

Reason, the courage of, 206 ; preferable 
to eloquence and martial glory, 257; 
assisted by belief, 281; an uncertain 
support, as compared with faith, 326 

Reflection, definition of, 16 

Reflections on the Conversation of the 
Ciceros, 472—478 

Religion, of the Persians, compared with 
that of the Greeks, 136, et seq. ; of Egypt, 
spread of its doctrines in Greece, 146, 
and Rome, 388; effect of an effeminat- 



ing, 147, 148; which is the best, 149; 
one intended for the uncivilised must 
contain marvels, 155; advice with refer- 
ence to our country's, 156 ; of the Druids, 
contrasted with that of the Greeks, 157; 
endangered by admitting too much, 230; 
doctrines of the Christian, discussed, 
280, et seq. ; august character of the 
ancient Roman, 388, and prophecy con- 
cerning it, ib., 389, 418; consequences of 
one altogether pacific, 389 
Religions, lalse, relished in proportion to 
their absurdities, 97 ; their tendency to 
wear out, 418 
Renovation and destruction, remark on, 460 
Repetition of sentiments, remarks on an 
author's, 81, 82 ; shows no want of inven- 
tion, 181 
Reproof, unpleasantness of, 9 
Republic, a, best adapted to the Roman 

nation, 476 
Republican, reason why every man is not 

a, 171 
Republics, who most commended in, 171; 
disadvantage attending, in a war with 
kings, 177; their stability endangered 
by a monopoly of wealth, 216 ; founda- 
tion of their power, 373 
Revenge, compared with malice, 124; re- 
quires energy, ib. 
Rhadamistus and Zenobia, 275 
Rhadamistus, his crimes, 277 ; his death, 

279 
Rhodope and ^Esop, 7 
Rhodope, account of her being sold to 

slavery, 27, et seq. 
Riches, effects of, in a community, 215, 216 
Ridicule, legitimate employment of, 280; 

unavailing against truth, 281 
Rites and ceremonies of the ancient Ro- 
mans, 388, 389; anticipated transfusion 
of them into a new creed, ib., 418 
Rituals, change in, made for lucre, 140 
Robbery and sacrilege compared, 91 
Roman language, its poverty in terms of 
art and science, 458 ; brought to perfec- 
tion by Caesar and Cicero, ib.] invaded 
by Hellenisms, ib. 
Roman people, the people of one city, 476 ; 
its physical peculiarities lost under con- 
querors, ib. 
Romans, error of Hannibal in employing 
elephants against them, 352; learned 
military science and whatever was use- 
ful from the Greeks, 355, 377; their cha- 
racter formed by that of their gods, 388 
remarks on their religious rites, ib., 
389, 418; indebted to Athens for their 
laws, 433; most virtuous and powerful 
under a republic, 476; their form of 
government not aristocratical, ib., 477 
Rome, humble character of her structures 
in the time of Corinth and Carthage, 
349; possibility of being taken by 
Hannibal considered, 353, 354; victo- 
rious through her liberal policy, ib.', 
admission of foren gods and priests into, 
388, 416, 417, 453 ; cause of her fall, 407, 
408 
Royal families, prevalence of insanity in, 

70 
Royalty, farthest of all things from reci- 



490 



INDEX. 



procity, 48 ; pleasures in, 53 ; disadvan- 
tages attending, 138 ; its aliment, and 
operation on mankind, 152 

Rulers, the knowledge requisite for, 75; of 
barbarians, their character, 203, 218; 
reverence due to, as compared with 
writers, 233 

Russia, Napoleon's invasion of, contrasted 
with that of Greece by Xerxes, 64 



Sacrifices to the gods, remarks on, 40, 55, 

56, 138 
Sacrilege, nature and punishment of, con- 
sidered, 91 
Sais, antiquity of its records, 117 
Sallustius (Crispus), animated style of his 

history, 391 
Salvation, Christian meaning of the term, 

291 
Samos, subjugation of, by Polycrates, 46 ; 

its fertility, 48 
Satire, essentials of true, 456 
Scsevola (Mutius), 405, 409 
Scipio, POLYBIUS, AND PAN.ZETIUS, 342 
Scipio, his emotions at the destruction of 

Carthage, 342, et seqr, his conduct with 

respect to the Agrarian law, 411 — 413, 

473 ; excites the suspicions of the Senate, 

474 
Scriptures, eclectic interpretation of the, 

322, 323 
Scoffing at abuses, the privilege of an 

honest man, 292 
Scourging slaves, its propriety discussed, 

88,94 
Sea, the, a tranquillizer of the soul, 107 
Sectarians, their injustice to tradesmen of 

a different creed, 335 
Sedition, what is, and what is not, 474; 

the worst kind of, ib. 
Selfishness,, excluded from the domestic 

circle, 206 
Self-love, extinguishes all other love, 229 
Senate of Rome, intended suppression of 

the, by the Marian faction, 407 
Senators, of Rome, and of Carthage, con- 
sequences of their ambition, 408 
Seneca and Eptctetus, 466 
Seneca, his unphilosophical conduct and 

mode of dress, 466, et seq. 
Sensibility, effects of great, in men, 245 
Sentence, elongation of the last member 

of a, recommended by Aristoteles, 158 
Sentiment, few writers repeat a kind, 82 ; 

criteria of a divine, 228 
Sentiments, the adoption of wiser, not 

inconsistency, 477 
Sertorius, character and conduct of, 404, 

405; his death compared with Csesar's, 

405 ; error committed by him in Spain, 

408 
Sesostris, power of Egypt in the reign of, 

147 ; pillars erected by, destroyed by 

Alexander, 203; estimate of, 313 
Shakspeare, his imagination wholly unlike 

Plato's, 116, note; his poetical version of 

the Androgyne, ib. 
Shepherds of Egypt, see Pelasgians' 
Sight, definition of the best, 310; certain 

proof of a defective, 328 



Silliness, alone escapes suspicion in courts, 
47 

Simplicity, does not admit of decoration, 468 

Sincerity, not usually a characteristic of 
the moderate, 87 ; Avhen most to be looked 
for, ib. 

Singularity, of individuals, remarks on 
the, 180, 181 ; when detestable, 181 

Slave, remark of Diogenes concerning a 
runaway, 306 

Slavery, when nof disgraceful, 30 ; remarks 
on, 94, 95 ; opinion of early Christians 
as to the abolition of, 321, 322 

Slaves, propriety of scourging, discussed, 
88,94; who only should, be made, 94; 
laws regarding, 306 

Sleep, Epicurean opinion respecting, 425 

Smiles, of men and women, difference 
between, 8 

Society, philosophical sense of the word, 
254 ; what is required by its laws, 414 

Socrates, a great man, 79 ; too little at 
home, ib. ; character of his disciples, 80 ; 
his genius and opinions misrepresented 
by Plato, 88, et seq.; simplicity of his 
language, 107 ; remarks on his marriage 
with Xantippe, 120, 121 ; his opinions 
respecting the sun and moon, 126, 127"; 
denounced all physical speculations, 127, 
128 ; the declaration of the Delphic 
Oracle concerning him a- fiction, 128 ; 
made by Plato to appear a Sophist, 153; 
nature of his discourses, 209 

Soldiers, art of swimming essential to, 
59 ; evils to be apprehended from, when 
a distinct class, 95 ; in a free state, how 
to be raised, 96; their alleged indulgence 
in luxury considered, 371 

Solon and Pjsistratus, 33 

Solon, falsehoods attributed to him by 
Plato, 117 ; his doctrines more sublime 
than Plato's, 299 ; his life consistent with 
them, 300; legislative services of, 433; 
his use of the pentameter, 457 

Sophocles and Pericles, 64 

Sophocles, his dramatic contest with 
iEschylus, 65, and note; his liberal 
character, 65 note; verses by, on the 
completion of the Pirseus and Poecile, 72 

Sorrow, uses of seasonable, 443, 444 

Soul, criticism on Plato's argument for its 
immortality, 97, 98; inference of the 
presence of one in animals, 314 

Souls, effect of a belief in the transmigra- 
tion of, 155 

Speaker, public, definition of a bad, 159 

Speculations, physical, denounced by 
Socrates, 127, 128 ; absurdity of profitless, 
whether in religion or philosophy, 328, 334 

Spleen, and its effects, description of, 264 

Stations, remark on the occupiers of high, 
424 

Statuaries and painters, their peculiar 
power, 64 

Statues, of illustrious men, their uses, 232 ; 
places appropriate for, ib. ; remark on the 
juxtaposition of, ib., 233 

Strategy, only a constituent part of a com- 
mander, 64 

Studies, benefits accruing from, 200 

Study, a love of, accompanied by a love of 
security, 419 



INDEX. 



491 



Stvle. of Aristophanes, 303: of Aristotle. 
108 158, 158 -■ 5, 213, 214, 2J 
ofCsesar, -. ~ 58 57, 458; 

of Cicero, 430, 443, 458,477; of Demo- 
critus. 157: of Demosthenes, 150, 
166; 179—183, 205, 306; of Epictetus, 
3j 469: of Herodotus. 102, 152, 225. 
- : of Homer, 102 : of Horace. 456. 457. 
459; of Lsseus, 152; of Livy. 214 

5; of Lucretius. 45S : of Ovid. 455. 
457. 458; of Pericles. 65. 153. 257, 
of Phocion. 173. 200, 205; of Pindar. 90. 
213: of Plat-. 10). et seq.. 152. 153.214 
. 215. 305—312, 430: of Plautus, 4: B ; 
of Polybins, 369. 370 : of Propeitius. 455. 
458; of Sallust. 391: of Socrates. 107 : of 
Terence. 4E ] re sti - 256, 26t 

261 : of Thucvdides. 153. 3" 8, : 
Tibullus. 457. 458 : of Virgil. 451—453 : : : 
Xenophon. 152. 391 : remarks on. 468. 469 

Suddenness, enhances the pleasure of an 
acquisition, 41 

Suu. adoration of the, by the Persians, 56. 
136. 137 : singular opinion respecting its 
size, 136: advantages of its worship in 
a hot climate. 137 

Superhuman beings, belief in ranks and 

- orders of. 332 : opinion as to their con- 
nexion with the human race. ib. 

Superstition concerning eggs and chickens. 
417 

Sympathv. want of, with our species, a 
proof of hardness of hear:. 85 

Syria, priests of. in Rome. 416 

Swimming, art of. necessary to a soldier. 59 



Talkative men. observations on. 200 
Tartarus, belief in the locality of. by the 

ancients. 298 
Taxos. its silver mir.es. 15S. and noU 

. when unwise to restrain them, 444: 

a remedy for affliction, ib. 
Teios, delight fulness c:. 48 
Telling and teaching, a difference between. 

293 
Temperance, its rank as a virtue. 242 ; 

includes justice, 
Terentius. His phraseology, 458 
Tbkotssa, Epicubus, asd Leosttost, 219 
Theater, reason -why women should visit 

it but rarely. 252 : censurable conduct of 

auditors at. ib.. 253 
Theophrastus. his opposition to the doc- 
trines of Epicurus, 244. 247. 249: his 

style and merits as a writer. 24$ 

260, 261: partiality of Aristoteles : r, 

256. 257 
Thesmophoria. religious rite of the, 104 
Thmking, power of, opinion as to its 

locality, 97 
Thoughts, of the wise and virtuous, their 

company. 74 
Thoutmosis. siege of Aoudris by, 116 
Thraciaus. their inoralitv. 10. li 
Thrasybiilns. estimate of, 109. 110 
Thucydid-s, his style. 153. 308. 390. 391 : 

his character as a historian, 390 

TlBEEIL'5 AND YlPSAXIA. 431 

Tiberiu-. his meeting with his divorced 
wife Vipsania, 461, and note; tendency 



of his family to insanity, ib. note ; his 
own character, ib. ; his residence at 
Rhod 

Tibullus axd Mf.ssala. 446 

Tibullus, befriended by Mes-ala. 447; his 

love for Delia. 448: his piety, 454. and 

• his name unabbreviated by the 

moderns. 455 note ; unrivalled in elegy, 

457 : purity of his language. 458 

Tim<?us. passage from Plato's, 96 

TlMuTHEUS AND L.UCIAX, 280 

Tongues, remark concerning unkuown. 315 

Tragedy, the highest kio 
contrasted with the Epic, ib. : superior 
pleasure derived from reading. 253 

Trajan, his chastisement of Christian 
image-breakers. - J87 : his charactei 
328: his friendsi.io with Plutarch, 328; 
his conduct with respect to the Christians 
of Bithyni 

Transmigration of souls, effect of the doc- 
trine. 155 

Traveler, occasional signification of the 
word. 290 

Trials, should be public. 92 

Tribunes, the Hainan, possessed supreme 
power. 476. 477: instances .: their inter- 
ference against the consuls. 477 

Troy, the tale of. query as to part being a 
translation. 203 

Truth, definition of. 79 ; its onlv bad 
quality, ib. : difficult to lay hold of. 128 : 
mischief of drawing a line between it 
and fidelity. 203 : not the first object with 
anyone, 22 ; hated by man, 248; : 
to us in a veil. 260; ridicule unavailing 
against, 281; -:::uld be sought after by 
philosophers, 292 ; begins or ends in 
seriousi.ess. 327: philosophy conduces 
to, 328; A.: 1 1 : gae of, by Critobulus, 
439-441 

Truths, the first revealers of, accounted 
madmen, 53: why many escape us. 93 

Tullius Servius . temple dedicated to 
Eortune by. 424 

Tusculan Disputation.?, Cicero's, 445, 475 

Tyi is, remarks on. 283 

Tyranny, of despo>. - methnes needful. 33 

Tyrants, less pernicious than king-. 36 ; 
will not believe that their alarm? and 
sorrows are the fruit of their tyranny, 
85: singers and buffoons their most 
imate associa:es. 39: isolated from 
their species, ib. : perish from folly. 52 

Tyro, his character. 405; the trustee of 
Cicero's writing-. ib. 

Tyrtaeus. his use of the pentameter. 457 

Tythes. among the Jews, ^17 : exacted by 
Pisistratus and Hiero, ib. ; in Spain, ib. 
note 



Unfortunate, bearing hard on the, the 

worst of wickedness. 37 
Untrue, difference between the false and 

the. i 
Usurper, reason for preferring the craelest. 

to the mildest king.. 36 
Usurpers, qualities necessary for. 50: their 

use of fraud. 52; must be taken off 

iraietly, 51 : virtually outlaws. Ill; duty 

of destroying, 169 



492 



INDEX. 



Vanity, the usual accompaniment of small 
stature and distortion, 10 

Vengeance, legitimate mode of, 255 

Vices, beneficial effect of some men's, 296 

Vipsania and Tiberius, 461 

Vipsanin, notice of, 461 note; her meeting 
with Tiberius, ib. 

Virgil, early works of, 451 ; remark on his 
Pollio, ib. ; criticism on his Georgics, 451 
—453 

Virtue, presupposed in friendship, 4 

Virtues, the four, 76; all contained in tem- 
perance and beneficence, ib. ; their origin 
in some men, 296 

Vote, soliciting a, an unworthy action, 174 



War, less pernicious to a state than 
priests, 147 ; evils of the most righteous, 
169 ; way to render it rare, 178 

Warrior, character of the great, 295 

Wealth, consequences of priestly, 147, 288; 
excessive, always brings with it exces- 
sive poverty, 215 

Whipping, infliction of, after death, 57 note 

Wickedness, the worst of, 37 

Will, effect of the variance of knowledge 
and, 424 

Wills, the right and expediency of making, 
considered, 174 

Wisdom, flies low for her food, 75; is tri- 
partite, 129; distinction between know- 
ledge and, 212 

Wit, what is true, to every man, 186 ; no 
man possesses a variety of, 303 ; banter, 
the worst species of, ib. 

Witticism, every, an inexact thought, 125 

Women, Plato's system respecting, con- 
sidered, 206, 207; common among the 
Etrurians, 206 ; friendships and enmities 
of, 231 ; most attracted to men by courage, 
241 ; should visit the theater but rarely, 
252; cannot bear another's superiority, 
401 

Words, the simplest and easiest, recom- 
mended in composition, 101, 102; im- 
portance of, in the intellectual world, 
296; evils resulting from the use of 
ambiguous, 297 ; magnificent, not often 
employed by genius, 305, 306 

World (moral), how to conquer the, 228 



World, belief of the early Christians in 
its impending extinction, 307 ; probable 
consequences, were such belief universal, 
308 

Writer, every great, a writer of history, 
109; few can at once duly estimate a 
great, 477 

Writers, obligation of great, to point out 
objects for our reverence or hatred, 110; 
benefits conferred by great, 200, 201, 
233 ; reverence due to great, as compared 
with rulers, 233; the best, the most 
intelligible, 304 

Writings, of great men, preferable to their 
conversation, 200 



Xeniades, his children educated by 
Diogenes, 131 ; his estimate of him, ib. 

Xenocrates, Alexander's presents to, 199, 
202 ; his character, 199 

Xenophon and Cyrus the Younger, 131 

Xenophon and Alcibiades, 141 

Xenophon, his superstition, 80, 391; his 
stvle, 152, 391; defects in his Cyropcedia, 
209, 391 

Xerxes and Artabanus, 55 

Xerxes, his preparations for the invasion 
of Greece, 55, et seq.; immense sacrifice 
offered by, 55, 56 ; his allies, 57 ; reason 
for his scourging the sea, ib., 58; 
gorgeous equipment of his troops con- 
demned, 58, 59 ; his dream, 61, 64; his 
invasion of Greece contrasted with 
Napoleon's invasion of Russia, 64; not 
so imprudent as Napoleon, ib. 



Years, increase of, inclines us to morose- 

ness, 326 
Youth, value of, 142 ; incited to the 

admiration of false glories by historians 

and pedagogues, 329, 330 



Zeno, his character, 295 ; his doctrine, 467 
Zenobia and Rhadamistus, 275 
Zenobia, probably ignorant of the guilt of 
Rhadamistus, 277 note ; her death, 279 



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